The Bulgarian Workers' Party
(Communists) which, I have no doubt, the Congress will unanimously
agree to rename Bulgarian Communist Party, has its roots deep in the
past. It was founded as a social-democrat Party in 1891 at the Congress
on Mt. Buzludja.1 However, it was only in 1903, following the rift
with the "broad" socialists, i.e. after it cleansed itself of the
social-reformist, opportunistic wing, that it became a Marxist working
class party under the leadership of Dimiter Blagoev and his
comrades-in-arms Georgi Kirkov and Gavril Georgiev.

During its development our Party waged a ceaseless struggle against
alien petty-bourgeois and bourgeois influences, and championed the
formation of an independent working class with an ideology and
organisation of its own. About the turn of the century it was a small
but growing detachment, trying to imbue the workers with
class-consciousness, to organise them and defend their vital interests,
i.e. it was primarily a propaganda organisation out to popularise
socialism. From this modest status it gradually developed during and in
the wake of World War I, into a mass political party of the working
class.

Under the impact of the Russian Revolution, enthusiastically welcomed
by the Bulgarian working people, the Party proclaimed itself in 1919 as
the Bulgarian Communist Party and, following the lead of the Bolshevik
Party, took part in the foundation of the Communist International. It
remained an active member of the Communist International until the
latter's self-disbandment in 1943.

In the course of three decades, especially after the September Uprising
in 1923, our Party rid itself of its non-Bolshevik, orthodox "narrow"
socialist vestiges, fought against various right and left-wing
deviations, learned from the Bolshevik Party, accumulated an
ever-increasing store of experience, developed, transformed, and
rearmed itself ideologically in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism. It
became a genuine Marxist-Leninist Party, the organised and conscious
vanguard of the working class, a party of a new type, capable of
mobilising and leading the working class in a life and death struggle,
of forging a militant alliance between the working class and the other
working people from town and countryside, of overthrowing the brutal
fascist dictatorship, of taking into its own hands the destiny of our
country, firmly resolved to lead it on to the victory of socialism, to
the full triumph of communism.

In its development the Party had to traverse a difficult, thorny and
zigzag road, a road of heroism and unshakable faith in the working
class and the toilers. Passing through a long period of underground
activity, suffering severe setbacks and making great sacrifices, our
Party never flagged nor gave up the fight.

The Party has always been loyal to the liberating mission of the
working class. Throughout its existence, despite errors, weaknesses and
vacillations, it always strove to be in the midst of the masses, to
move forward with them, to instruct them in the spirit of
uncompromising class struggle and proletarian internationalism, to
defend their interests honestly and selflessly and to lead them into
battle against their sworn enemies. During the hardest years of
monarcho-fascist dictatorship and German occupation, the Party
fearlessly headed the fight against fascism and foreign invaders,
organised and conducted the Partisan movement, created the Fatherland
Front and by its selfless and correct guidance, succeeded in leading
the nation on to the victorious September 9th, and in winning the
sympathy and the confidence of the broad masses.

The recent fusion of the Social-Democrat Party, participating in the
Fatherland Front with our Party, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and
our Party rules and discipline, did away with the last elements of
disunity within the working class, which is now united in a single
political party.

It is only natural and logical that our Party should be recognised
today as the leading force in the state administration and in the
entire public life of our country.

Our Party's great prestige, the general interest which our Congress has
aroused and the hopes our people are pinning on its decisions, show
clearly that it is entrusted with the historical mission of ensuring
our country's progress by laying the cornerstone of socialist society,
a society without exploitation of man by man.

There cannot be the slightest doubt that the Party of the Bulgarian
Communists, heading the working class, enjoying the confidence and the
support of the working people and remaining always loyal to the all – conquering doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, will successfully fulfil its
historic mission. The decisions of our present Congress will be an
additional guarantee of this.

I. Main Periods of the Party's Development

Before analysing the present condition of our Party and its immediate
tasks, it is advisable to make a general critical survey of its
development from its foundation up to the present. This has both a
historic and political significance for the Party as well as for our
people and country. It is necessary fully to clarify certain questions
of its past history.

The history of our Party can be divided into the following main periods:

1) From the foundation of the Party in 1891, to the split with the opportunist Socialists in 1903.

2) From the formation of the Party as a Marxist party of the working
class in 1903, to the Russian Revolution and the transformation of the
Party into a Communist Party in 1919, and its participation in the
foundation of the Communist International.

3) From 1919, to the September Uprising of 1923.

4) From the September Uprising in 1923, to World War II in 1940.

5) From World War II to the Uprising of September 9th, 1944.

6) From September 9th, to the present.

These main periods in the Party's history naturally have, their own stages of development.

Let us analyse the most characteristic features of these periods in the development of our Party.

1. "Narrow"
Socialist Period

Before proceeding to analyse the "narrow" socialist period I want to
observe that the first period of our Party, from 1891 to 1903, is
characterised by a growing and stubborn propaganda of socialist ideas
and by a ceaseless struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois
ideologists who denied the possibility of a socialist movement under
the then still undeveloped social conditions. It had to be proven that
in Bulgaria, which had barely entered upon the path of capitalism,
there existed the possibility for socialism, the exponent of which
would be the incipient working class, that the future belonged to this
class, and that it had to have its own political party. A growing
struggle ensued within the Party around these issues between the
revolutionary Marxist trend of Dimiter Blagoev, and the
reformist-opportunist trend of Yanko Sakazov. This long ideological
fight ended in the victory of revolutionary Marxism over
petty-bourgeois reformist socialism.

The Party's positive attributes during its "narrow" socialist period
were a deep loyalty to Marxism, proletarian socialism and
internationalism, an uncompromising class attitude toward the
bourgeoisie and its reformist agents, an unshakable faith in the
triumph and the future of the working class, and a conscious iron
discipline. The "narrow" socialists firmly believed in subordination of
the personal life, private interests and individual will of the party
member to the interests and the will of the proletarian party. Thanks
to these qualities our Party achieved great success in the period prior
to World War I and immediately following it. They enabled it to become
the organiser and leader of the workers' struggles and to dislodge
reformism from its key positions in the labour movement. They also
helped it during World War I to adopt a bold internationalist stand, to
draw nearer to the Bolsheviks and, after the Russian revolution and the
creation of the Communist International, to proceed with its own
bolshevisation.

During the "narrow" socialist period our Party cleansed its ranks of
the reformists, ensured the independent development of the working
class as a separate class, and waged an implacable struggle against the
ruling bourgeoisie. Class against class was the Party's slogan and
policy during that period. It took over leadership of the growing
struggles of the workers and toilers for an eight-hour working day,
social legislation, improvement of living and working conditions, and
against the reactionary home and foreign policy of the bourgeoisie. It
organised and led the trade, union movement. It directed the great
miners' strike at Pernik in 1906, as well as the strikes of other
sections of the working class during the ensuing years. There was not a
single strike which was not under the Party's leadership or at least
under its influence.

The Party educated the working people in the spirit of proletarian
internationalism. It seized the initiative and took a very active part
in the creation of a Balkan federation of socialist parties, and strove
with all its might to strengthen the solidarity between Bulgarian
working people and the working people of other Balkan states, and all
over the world.

The "narrow" socialists' inflexible attitude towards reformism and the
various reformist factions, their refusal to live side by side with
bourgeois agents in the labour movement, their militant struggle in
defence of the vital interests and rights of the working class -all
this stamped them as a peculiarly revolutionary Marxist trend in the
international labour movement and in the II. International. Of all the
left social-democratic trends, they were the closest to Bolshevism.

From this it did not follow, however, that "narrow" socialism did not
differ from Bolshevism on the basic questions. The Party suffered from
the dangerous misconception that "narrow" socialism was a Bulgarian
brand of Bolshevism and that it only had to adapt itself to the new
international situation.

It should be stressed that it was this very misconception of the Party
and especially of its leadership, from Dimiter Blagoev down, which long
held it back in the position of 19th century Marxism and prevented it
from assimilating the new in Marxism, the valuable contributions of
Lenin, who brought Marxism up-to-date by adapting it to the epoch of
imperialism -the highest stage of capitalism. This substantially
retarded the bolshevisation of our Party, and explains the wrong
tactics of its leadership during the Vladaya events, and especially
during the military-fascist coup d'etat on June 9, 1923.

It is true that "narrow" socialism, especially with its uncompromising
class attitude, its struggle against Bulgarian Menshevism, and its iron
discipline, was close to Bolshevism. It is no less true, however, that
"narrow" socialism differed from Bolshevism and Leninism on several
basic questions of principle and tactics.

What were the main differences between "narrow" socialism and Bolshevism?

"Narrow" socialism did not consider the proletarian dictatorship a
basic feature of the proletarian revolution. This question was missing
in the Party programme. Unaware yet of the emergence of a new phase of
capitalist development, as its last phase, the eve of the proletarian
revolution, it did not put forward concretely the question of power and
armed insurrection as a means of overthrowing the bourgeoisie.

"Narrow" socialism did not hold Leninist positions on the question of
the role of the Party as the militant vanguard of the working class in
the revolution, in the struggle for power, although in its structure,
organisation and discipline, the Party came close to the Leninist
doctrine of the party. Our Party did not yet consider itself a higher
form of organisation of the Bulgarian working class which could lead
all other organisations of the working people, establish the closest
contact with the masses and thus ensure successful revolutionary
activity.

"Narrow" socialism was not quite free from a certain worship of
spontaneity in the labour movement. It was under the spell of the
social-democratic conception of the automatic functioning of objective
social laws. It saw as its main task agitation and propaganda,
explaining and elucidating the objectively functioning laws of social
development, organising and educating workers and all working people in
the spirit of socialism, arousing the class consciousness of the
workers, guiding their daily struggles with a view to the inevitable
socialist revolution which would occur as a result of the ripening
objective conditions. The Party did not consider itself an active
force, called upon not only to organise and educate the toilers and to
direct their everyday struggles, not only to explain events, but also
to participate in the creation and canalisation of the revolutionary
events, to become a dominant factor in the preparation, organisation
and development of the proletarian revolution. Hence, a certain lag and
passivity of the Party at the moment of sharp class struggles, a
sectarian isolation from the masses who had risen in revolt.

"Narrow" socialism transformed a series of Marxist teachings into a
dogma, as a result of which the Party lapsed into sectarianism and made
its contacts with the broad masses more difficult. Thus, for instance,
pursuing a policy of uncompromising struggle against the bourgeoisie as
a class correctly opposing the various electoral coalitions with
bourgeois parties, and the "constructive" legislative work of the
bourgeois parliament, the Party turned independent action to a dogma,
denied in general and under any conditions the advisability of an
understanding with other social and political groups and thus in fact
isolated itself. Our Party 's attitude had nothing in common with the
Leninist doctrine on revolutionary compromises without which no
revolutionary party can wage a successful struggle and make headway.

Failing to understand the role of the peasants as allies of the working
class in the struggle against capitalism, it took up a Plekhanovist and
not a Leninist position on the peasant problem. It enlisted peasants
under its banner only in so far as they moved over to the positions of
the proletariat. As is well known, Lenin supplemented and further
developed the Marxist doctrine of the relations of the proletariat and
the peasants. He put forward and developed the idea of a militant
alliance between the workers and the peasants in their capacity of
small commodity producers, before they are ready to assimilate
socialism. Lenin showed the possibility of using the existent
revolutionary potentialities of the peasants in the bourgeois-democratic as well as in the socialist revolution.

Our Party waged a correct and successful struggle against the
reformists who tried to transform the party of the working class into a
diluted petty-bourgeois party and in this way to make it a tool of the
bourgeoisie and deprive the working class of its independence. But our
Party failed to grasp that the peasants, as small commodity producers,
subjected to the exploitation of monopoly capital, have considerable
revolutionary potentialities, that they are the natural allies of the
working class in its struggle for emancipation, that without the
alliance of the workers and peasants, without the realisation of the
leadership of the working class in this alliance, capitalist rule
cannot be overthrown and no victory of the proletariat is possible.

"Narrow" socialism dogmatically defined the peasant commodity producer
solely as a conservative element in society. It did not realise that
the domination of the trusts leads to the increasing exploitation and
pauperisation of the mass of the peasantry, renders them ever more
dissatisfied and arouses revolutionary tendencies among them. This lack
understanding of the revolutionary potentialities of the peasantry as
an ally of the working class in the revolution constitutes one of the
most characteristic differences between "narrow" socialism and
Leninism. Hence it is by no means an accident that the Party in 1900,
during the peasant revolts, neglected the revolutionary potentialities
of the peasants in the struggle against capitalism, potentialities
which could have been developed and realised only under the leadership
of the working class and its militant vanguard. Nor is it an accident
that our Party did not have at that time its revolutionary agrarian
programme. It is noteworthy that not on a single one of the problems
which Lenin developed and contributed to the treasury of

Marxism, such as the continuation and application of Marxism in the
epoch of imperialism, did "narrow" socialism take up a Leninist
positions. Hence it failed to profit from the lessons of the first
Russian Revolution in 1905, and both in its appraisal of that
revolution and in its deductions from it, failed to go beyond Kautsky.
It was completely alien to the new essential aspects of Marxist theory
of the proletarian revolution, developed by Lenin in his "Two Tactics"
concerning the leading role of the working class in the bourgeois
democratic revolution, the latter's transformation into a socialist
revolution and the armed uprising. That is why, although it tirelessly
propagated the idea of a socialist revolution as the only way out for
the toilers, our party had no clear conception of the basic problems of
this revolution. It did not think out the problem of the specific ways
and means by which the revolution could be carried out in Bulgaria, of
its main driving forces, its character and peculiarities and the role
of the working class and the Party. It did not tackle the problem about
the allies of the working class.

This shows that our Party, despite its enormous revolutionary services
to the Bulgarian working people, was not yet a Bolshevik
Marxist-Leninist party, a party of the new type -"sufficiently
experienced to find its bearings amidst the complex conditions of a
revolutionary situation and sufficiently flexible to steer clear of all
submerged rocks in the path to its goal", as Comrade Stalin said.

Prior to World War I, when the primary task was to organise the forces
of the working class, and develop their class-consciousness the
shortcomings and weaknesses of "narrow" socialism were not yet felt in
practice. But, when World War I broke out and the overthrow of
capitalism became a practical problem, they stood out glaringly and
were intensely felt.

During World War I, especially after the Russian Revolution, the Party
launched an educational and propaganda drive among the soldiers to
prepare them "to follow the example of their Russian brothers", i.e.
for revolution. But at the decisive moment when the soldiers at the
front turned their bayonets against the war-criminals, rose en masse
and set off for Sofia, (i.e. followed in practice the example of their
Russian brothers), the Party was not up to its task. It failed to
organise and successfully direct the uprising, to give it a nation-wide
character by drawing in the workers and peasants, to give it direction
and to transform it into a people's uprising against the monarchy (the
main agency of German imperialism) and against the ruling capitalist
clique which was using the war for plunder and enrichment. The Party
could undoubtedly at that time have united the majority of the toilers
from towns and villages by raising the slogan of peace and for a
people's democratic republic. Unity of action between the workers'
party and the Agrarian Union would have ensured the success of the
uprising. Such a victorious popular uprising for a people's republic
might in 1918 have changed the general trend of development of the
country and the Balkans to the advantage of the people.

The main reason why our Party did not take over leadership of the
soldier masses who in the autumn of 1918 had risen against the war and
the monarchy, lay in its doctrinaire tendencies, its non-Bolshevik
concepts and methods, vestiges of "narrow" socialism.

Lacking the Leninist conception of the peculiar features of the
revolutionary process in different countries, of the relationship and
organic tie-up between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for
socialism, our Party considered that the epoch of socialist revolution
had arrived and hence that the slogan of a people's republic could not
be put forward by a Marxist party, since it was not a specifically
socialist slogan.

Lacking the Leninist conception of a militant alliance of the workers
and peasants, our Party thought that because the soldier masses,
composed predominantly of peasants, were not ready to fight for Soviet
power, they were therefore incapable of any real revolutionary
struggle. Just because of this doctrinaire interpretation of Marxism,
it did not take over the leadership of the soldiers' uprising and did
nothing to transform it into a general uprising. As a result, the
rising remained isolated, without proper leadership and was quelled.

Thus, "narrow" socialism was a revolutionary Marxist trend, but not a
Bulgarian brand of Bolshevism. A long struggle was necessary to
bolshevise the party in order to make it a party of a new type, a
Marxist-Leninist Party, such as with a justified feeling of pride it
appears today before the congress.

2. Our Party in the Communist International and the Beginning of Its Bolshevisation

Our Party unanimously and enthusiastically welcomed the Russian
Revolution, adopting its slogans and mobilizing our working people in
defence of the young Soviet Socialist Republic.

During the civil war, imperialist intervention and famine in the Volga
regions, our Party carried through a remarkable political and relief
campaign. Who can forget the historic months when our working peasants
with rare enthusiasm and self-sacrifice collected a great deal of food
for their Soviet brothers and when the working class, headed by the
Party, dispersed the 20,000 strong Wrangel Army in Bulgaria and
prevented its use by Churchill and his friends in a military
intervention against the Soviet Union?

At its 1919 congress our Party renamed itself Communist Party. In
contrast to the parties in many other countries, our Party as a whole
entered into the Communist International: what is more, it played a
part in its creation, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and
the immortal Lenin. It adopted a new programme. It regarded the
proletarian revolution no longer as a long-term aim, but as an
immediate task, for which the objective conditions had already matured
and the solution of which depended on the subjective factor of the
revolution, i.e. mainly on the readiness and ability of our Party to
organise and lead the revolution. At its 1921 Congress it declared that
the Soviet form of the dictatorship of the proletariat was a basic
factor of the proletarian revolution. In its resolution on the peasant
problem the Party proclaimed as an indispensable prerequisite for the
victory of the revolution the alliance between workers and peasants
under the leadership of the working class. The adoption of these
programmatic points, which were popularised through translations of
Lenin's basic works, was accompanied by the Party's active
participation in the work of the Communist International.

The Party also adopted in principle the methods of illegal struggle and
their combination with the fullest use of all legal possibilities for
the struggle, such as parliament and the municipal and county councils.

The Party proceeded to create a military organisation of its own,
engaged in considerable propaganda and organisational activity among
the soldiers and started to arm the masses. It headed the bitter
struggles of the working people after the catastrophic war, the great
campaigns for an amnesty, against the high cost of living, against the
turning of Bulgaria into a base for intervention against the USSR, and
for recognition of the Soviet Union.

At the same time the Party launched a mass struggle for transforming
the municipalities from instruments of oppression, spoliation and
exploitation, into organisations serving the interest of the working
people. A series of important town and several village councils passed
into the hands of the Communist Party. Thus, in 1920 we had 22 town and
65 village Communist municipalities. Their economic and cultural policy
in the interests of the working class and the working people generally
naturally met with the fierce resistance of the bourgeoisie and of the
central authorities. The long and very bitter struggles the formation
and consolidation of these communes, as they were called, will always
be remembered in the history of our country.

Unless the proletariat, led by the Party, could take over power
completely in all spheres, these communes were bound to be short-lived;
they were eventually destroyed by the bourgeoisie one by one.

But the struggle of the working people under the leadership of our
Party to capture the municipalities contributed much to the unification
of the masses in the struggle against the exploiters and raised
considerably the prestige of the Party.

Our Party linked up the working people's struggles for their immediate
needs with the preparation of the decisive battles for the victory of
the revolution. When important interests of the working people were at
stake or their political rights and liberties in serious jeopardy, the
Party did not hesitate to resort also to the organisation of a general
political strike, as was the case with the transport strike in 1919-20,
and to major mass actions, going as far as to collaborate with the
Agrarian Government in 1922 against rising reaction and fascism. Thus
the Party rallied new large masses from towns and villages.

Despite its participation in the Communist International and its
considerable successes in emerging as the leader of the class struggle
of the working people in the revolutionary post-war situation, the
Party had not yet grasped, and its leadership had not pointed out
concretely the basic difference between "narrow" socialism and
Bolshevism, had not yet drawn from it the necessary lessons for the
Party, and had not yet headed the struggle for overcoming the negative
hangovers of "narrow" socialism and to rearm the Party with
Marxism-Leninism.

The Party was indeed accumulating its own revolutionary capital, but
there continued to predominate in it legalist, propagandist habits and
a tendency to consider Marxism rather as a dogma than as a guide to
revolutionary action.

This became most apparent in the position taken by the Party leadership
on June 9, 1923, when just this "narrow" socialist doctrinaire tendency
gained the upper hand. The ill-fated policy of neutrality, proclaimed
by the Party leadership, was justified by lifeless doctrinaire
considerations completely alien to the reality and to revolutionary
Marxism. The Party leadership maintained that because the Agrarian
Government had discredited itself by its administration, the masses
would not rise in its defence against the fascist coup; and on the
other hand, that since the peasants were not yet ready to fight for a
workers' and peasants' government, they would not follow the appeal of
the Communist Party for an uprising against fascism. The Party leadership evidently underestimated the great authority of the
Communist Party among the masses, which it had won by its struggles. It
underestimated the people's hatred of fascism and the banker-militarist
oligarchy, provoked by the representatives of the Palace and the
bourgeois-monarchist cliques and fanned by the Communist Party. If it
had followed the example set by the Bolshevik Party during the
attempted Kornilov coup in September 1917, if it had united with the
sound forces in the Agrarian Union and had come out openly against the
fascist plotters, the fascist coup would undoubtedly have been smashed.

The non-Bolshevik "narrow" socialist concept of the revolution
prevailing within the Party leadership, on June 9 and the days
following, led to a moral and political fiasco. An excellent
opportunity was missed to destroy the completely the monarcho-fascist
forces at their very outset and to win important positions in the
struggle against capitalism and for socialism.

"Narrow" socialism as an ideological and political weapon of the
working class did not pass the test of history under the new conditions
of the post-war crisis of capitalism and the ensuing struggle for
power. This weapon proved to be clearly inadequate to ensure a
proletarian victory in our country.

Our Party had to grasp this, to see in the light of its own
revolutionary experience, the difference between “narrow” socialism and
Bolshevism, and to overhaul its entire political and organisational
activity in a Marxist-Leninist spirit, overcoming once and for all its
hangovers of negative social-democrat concepts, habits and methods. The
sound Marxist “narrow” socialist traditions, qualities and experience
had to be melted in the Bolshevik cauldron.

Our Party had already started moving along that road, but its
purification from the negative vestiges of the past and its
bolshevisation had now to take place under the hard conditions of
illegality and white terror which followed in the wake of the
suppression of the September uprising, under the relentless and brutal
fire of the enemy.

3. The September 1923 Uprising, a Turning Point in the Bolshevisation of the
Party

The anti-fascist popular uprising in September 1923, organised and led
by the Bulgarian Communist Party, constitutes a turning-point in its
development from "narrow" socialism to Bolshevism.

That which the Communist Party failed to achieve during the crisis
caused by the fascist coup, it attempted to do later when the fascist
government threw the country into a new crisis which led to the armed
September uprising. The sound Marxist nucleus in August 1923, aided by
the Communist International, gained ascendancy within the Party
leadership and imposed a radical change in its strategy and tactics.
The Party broke with its former isolation, embarked upon a course of
rallying all anti-fascist forces in one block of the working people
from town and countryside and proceeded to prepare the masses for a
general struggle against the monarcho-fascist dictatorship, including
an armed uprising, raising the slogan of a workers' and peasants'
government.

Steering this new course, the Party concluded an alliance for common
struggle with the Agrarian Union, tried to achieve an agreement with
the Macedonian organisation I.M.R.O., and extended a hand for joint
struggle to the Social-Democratic Party whose leaders had hitched it to
the chariot of Tsankov. In cooperation with the Agrarian Union it took
leadership of the September 1923 popular armed uprising.

The conditions under which this uprising took place were, naturally, no
longer as favourable as in June. The initiative had passed into the
hands of the enemy. But even in September the victory of the uprising
was objectively possible. Everything depended on the energy, boldness
and unity of the Communist Party and of the masses in revolt. The
failure of the Party rank and file and leadership to fully realise the
erroneousness and harmfulness of the June 9 tactics and the Party's
incomplete bolshevisation, as I have already stressed, prevented it
from properly organising, leading, and ensuring the success of the
September 1923 uprising.

The September events demonstrated that many local and central Party
leaders had either not adopted the course of uncompromising struggle
against fascism, or had done so only in words, without conviction or
the will to fight, without a desire to really prepare the Party for
such a struggle. As a result, many Party organisations were caught
napping by these events. During the uprising many local leaders could
not or would not undertake any action against the fascist authorities.
Herein lies the main reason for its defeat.

There are, however, defeats which contribute much to the future victory
of the cause of the working class emancipation. Such was the case with
the defeat of the September 1923 uprising.

The fact that the Party took over leadership of the uprising, put an
end to the defeatism of June 9 and adopted a firm course of struggle
against the fascist dictatorship, was of decisive importance for its
own future and for that of the Bulgarian' revolutionary movement.

The September uprising created a bloody and unbridgeable gap between
the masses of the people and the fascist bourgeoisie. As a result,
fascism never managed during the succeeding years to stabilise its
positions and to form a broad social basis. The selfless struggle and
the consistent worship and tireless work for the establishment of a
united anti-fascist front brought it much closer to the masses,
strengthened its ties with them and created the prerequisites for its
emergence as the true leader of the working people of town and
countryside in the struggle for democracy and socialism.

These were great achievements which were firmly to embedded in the revolutionary arsenal of our Party.

The bloody lesson of the September uprising galvanized the
bolshevisation process of the Party. It was considerably facilitated
also by the open admission of the June 9 error by the leader of the
Party, Dimiter Blagoev, and by his complete approval of the September
uprising.

At the same time, however, the defeat and the great casualties suffered
by the Party and the masses kept alive liquidationist right and
left-wing tendencies within the Party. Both trends condemned the
September uprising and united in an unprincipled block for a struggle
against the September leadership of the Party. The final goal of this
block was to liquidate in practice the Communist Party.

A group of former communist activists, headed by Nikola Sakarov and
Ivan Klincharov, proclaimed the Party "liquidated" and founded an
opportunist miscarriage -"the Independent Labour Party." The workers
met this treacherous "party" with animosity, while the Central
Committee excluded the liquidators from the Party. This showed the
danger which threatened the Party after the defeat of the September
uprising and against which a decisive struggle had to be waged.

An important moment in the Party's development after the September
setback and after its ban by the fascist government was the illegal
Vitosha Conference which took place in April, 1924, with the
participation of delegates from most districts.

The Vitosha Conference expressed solidarity with the appraisal by the
Executive Committee of the Communist International of the events and of
the tactics of our Party during the period under review. It admitted
that during the June 9 days the Party had permitted serious errors in
the application of the tactics of the united front and that on June 9
it had committed a crucial blunder.

The Conference endorsed the orientation of the Party toward an armed
uprising, adopted at the beginning of August, but condemned both the
pre- and post-September "June 9 tactics" stubbornly maintained by the
majority of 1he Central Committee and of the Party Council. The
justification of the erroneous position on the part of the Central
Committee hindered to no small extend the conscious orientation of the
Party toward an armed uprising.

The Conference considered it correct that the Party "had assumed
command of the uprising", started by the popular masses, and "had fixed
its aim -a workers' and peasants' government" and under "exceedingly
difficult conditions" had attempted "to organise, unify and broaden
it." The Party had thereby shown that it was "capable of passing over
from revolutionary propaganda and agitation to revolutionary action"
that it was "a genuine Communist Party" which had fulfilled its
assigned task in a worthy manner: to prepare and lead the toilers
toward a new armed uprising for the establishment of a workers' and
peasants' government.

The significance of the Vitosha Conference consists in the fact that,
at a most crucial moment in the life of the Party, it succeeded in
rallying the sound Party forces around the September nucleus of the
Central Committee, and based them on the September line of the Party,
approved and ratified by the Communist International. But, while
mobilising the masses for the correct Party policy, combating the right
deviation, it failed to give adequate warning of the danger of the
left, against which a decisive fight had to be also waged.

The situation during the period following the September uprising,
outlawing of the Communist Party and of the working class
organisations, was characterised by the following facts:

1) The country was facing the perspective of new struggles for the
overthrow of the fascist government and the creation of a workers’ and
peasants’ government. The results of the parliamentary elections in
November 1923 confirmed this estimate of the Party leadership which
coincided with that of the Communist International. They showed that
the opposition against the fascist government, represented by the
Communist Party and the Agrarian Union, was quite strong. The
conclusion was that the indignation of the masses was great and that
they were disposed to continue the fight for the overthrow of the
fascist government.

2) The fact that Communists and Agrarians went into the election
campaign with a common list showed that they had learned a lesson from
the past and had adopted the new tactics of the united front. The joint
struggle, of the Communist Party and the Agrarian Union was of decisive
importance for the victory in those elections.

3) The fascist dictatorship seriously impeded the legal mass work of
the Party. At the same time, the perspectives of a new armed struggle
induced the Party to pay special attention to the military training of
the masses.

In this situation and stimulated by the white terror of the fascist
government, there arose the danger of an ultra-left deviation within
the Party, and particularly within its military organisation which, in
answer to the government terror, organised its own groupings and
committed terrorist acts.

Meanwhile, the end of 1924 and the beginning of 1925 marked a change in
the general situation. The international and domestic position of
fascism was temporarily strengthened as a result of the temporary and
partial stabilisation of capitalism in Europe. There existed no
prospect for a new armed uprising. In March 1925, the Party
representatives abroad re-evaluated the country's position nationally
and internationally and proposed to suspend the Party line of armed
insurrection. Instead they recommended a course of creating mass
organisations and of intensifying the mass struggle of workers and
peasants for the satisfaction of their vital needs. This new policy was
intended to forestall the imminent danger of an ultra-left deviation,
which would have been fatal to the Party and the revolutionary
movement. The Party Executive inside the country, however, proved
unable to cope with the ultra-left deviation, to discontinue in time
the policy of armed uprising and to proceed with the reorganisation of
the Party's activity in accordance with the changed conditions.

The fascist government continued its terroristic course with even
greater ferocity. Taking advantage of the desperate actions of the
leaders of the Party's military organisation, culminating in the
attempt at the Sofia cathedral, it started a mass slaughter of active
Communists, worker and peasant activists.

The terror following the attempt in the Sofia Cathedral on April 16,
19252 dealt a very serious blow to the Party. Its leadership was
disorganised. The majority of the Party cadres who had survived the
September uprising were killed, imprisoned or compelled to emigrate.
Conditions of underground work became exceptionally hard. It is under
such conditions that the Party had to ensure a leadership to the
struggle of the toilers and to continue the fight against fascism. It
had to also learn its lessons from the defeats of 1923 and 1925, to
discover their main causes and to unify the Party members on a
Bolshevik basis. Having suffered serious setbacks, considerably
weakened, deprived of its best leaders, the Party was undergoing a most
trying period of development.

The question of the Party's past and its bolshevisation was discussed
for the first time at the Moscow Conference in 1925, summoned on the
initiative of the Party's leadership abroad with the consent of the
Executive Committee of the Communist International and attended by the
survivors of the Central Committee and those Party activists who had
emigrated during the 1923­1925 events. The estimate given by this
conference, namely, that the Party had managed "to pass gradually and
painlessly, without serious internal crises, from the period of organic
development of capitalism to that of its decline, to assimilate and
adapt itself to the peculiarities of the revolutionary epoch", was
however exaggerated and did not correspond entirely to reality.
Experience showed that the Party's transition from "the epoch of
organic development of capitalism to that of its decline", was
difficult, vacillating, accompanied by serious errors, as, for
instance, during the Vladaya soldiers' insurrection on June 9, and the
ultra-left error of the leadership of the military organisation.

The assimilation of the characteristics of the revolutionary epoch was
in general a hard and serious task, and it was still more difficult to
grasp the specific features of the revolutionary epoch in the Balkans,
where our Party had to function. The conference correctly noted the
necessity of mastering Marx-Leninism as a guide for action, by studying
our own revolutionary experience and that of the Russian Revolution.
Using sound self-criticism the Party "had to re-educate itself so as to
be able to find its way in every historic situation and, taking into
account the concrete conditions, to correctly lead the fight of the
masses on their path toward international revolution."

The Vienna sessions of the Central Committee in 1926 did not go beyond
the Moscow conference on the question of the Party's bolshevisation.
Indeed, it specifically stressed the task of the "ideological rallying
of the Party masses around the Party banner and the Communist
International on the basis of Leninism."

It was also absolutely true that the Moscow conference and the enlarged
Plenum of the Central Committee in Vienna stressed the tremendous
importance of the Party's bolshevisation by means of studying its own
experience in the light of Leninism. But the enlarged Plenum of the
Central Committee and the Moscow conference erred in considering
bolshevisation a process of organic development, and not a fight to
overcome the non-Bolshevik traditions of the "narrow" socialist period.

After the Vitosha conference, which rallied the Communist Party around
the policy of the September uprising, the Second Party Conference held
in Berlin late in December 1927 and the beginning of 1928 submitted to
a thorough scrutiny the Party's post-1923 activities, its tactics,
achievements, errors and setbacks. A bitter fight had to be waged
during the second conference against left and right deviations.

Already at the Moscow conference serious controversies had occurred
over the appraisal of the mistakes made by the Party. The defenders of
the June 9 defeatism and the supporters of the ultra-left deviation of
the April 1925 events, united de facto in the struggle against the
September leadership of the Party. The representatives of the September
policy had to wage a fight on two fronts. After a thorough discussion
of all questions, the right-wingers and left-wingers hauled down their
banners and formally approved the resolutions proposed by the Party
leadership.

But after the conference, dissensions broke out with new vigour. The
right opportunists and left sectarians united in an unprincipled bloc
against the September Party leadership. This became very apparent at
the Vitosha Party Conference.

As a result of the Party's difficult organisational situation there
were few representatives of Party organisations present at the
Conference and, to a large extent, their presence there was accidental.
Morever, an undercover ultra-left sectarian faction within the Party,
composed of a few petty-bourgeois intellectuals, had taken shape; they
tried to create an artificial majority through underhand agitation in
order to impose their own sectarian conceptions and to take over the
Party leadership.

During the prolonged and stormy debates, the June 9 and right-wing
defeatism were thoroughly and finally exposed and disarmed. But the
ultra­left sectarian faction, abetted by Trotskyist and left-wing
elements in certain other Communist Parties, although it voted for the
resolutions of the September leadership, did not disarm and immediately
after the conference continued and increased its factional activities.

The Conference made a real attempt to provide an analysis and a general
appraisal of the Party's past. It pointed out the elements which
brought "narrow" socialism closer to bolshevism and which helped the
Party's orientation towards Bolshevism. It also showed up many
questions on which "narrow" socialism differed from the Bolshevism and
which handicapped its bolshevisation. But the Second Party Conference,
although it made a major step forward, did not go all the way, did not
clearly define the fundamental difference between "narrow" socialism
and Leninism on the basic questions of the revolution. The Second
Conference, too, considered the bolshevisation of the Party as an
adaptation of revolutionary "narrow" socialism to the new conditions,
and not as a fight for overcoming of social-democratic vestiges within
the Party and its Bolshevik (Marxist-Leninist) re-armament. Emphasising
that in the post-war period the Party was "developing and functioning
in general as a revolutionary party of the Bulgarian proletariat," the
Second Party Conference stated that it was gradually substituting "the
methods of mass revolutionary action, adaptation to the needs and
requirements of the revolutionary epoch, for the methods of agitation
and propaganda and of economic struggle of the pre-war period." Indeed,
the conference stressed that this development "did not advance in a
straight line but through zigzags and vacillations," that the
bolshevisation of the Party took place through "a clash between
Bolshevik tendencies pushing it forward and social-democratic vestiges
pulling it backward." Yet at the same time it uncritically declared
that "revolutionary 'narrow' socialism and the September current" had
"merged in two basic and unshakable party roots as a Bolshevik Party of
the Bulgarian proletariat."

The Second Party Conference characterised the September uprising as "a
full negation of the June 9 tactics," as "a major turning-point in the
Party's development," which laid the foundation for the "definitive and
irretrievable break with the social-democratic and June 9 vestiges," as
the decisive step on the Party's road to bolshevisation.

In its appraisal of the "narrow" socialist period, the Second Party
Conference, without identifying "narrow" socialism with Bolshevism,

nevertheless stressed the similarities between "narrow" socialism and
Bolshevism and did not dwell sufficiently on the differences.

Summarizing that period, I want to say again from this tribune that
unfortunately we, Dimiter Blagoev's closest collaborators, were unable
to make the necessary Marxist-Leninist re-appraisal of all aspects of
the revolutionary past of the Party and of the Bulgarian proletariat at
the proper time and to avail ourselves of the positive and great
capital of the revolutionary movement, in order to overcome, once and
for all, all non-Bolshevik vestiges of the “narrow” socialist period.

That fact, along with the serious illegal situation of the Party, was
exploited by various ultra-left individuals who had fortuitously
penetrated the leadership and even took it over temporarily.

4. The Struggle Against Left-Sectarianism in the Party and Its Liquidation

Misusing the authority of the Communist International, posing inside
the country as the real interpreter of its decisions, taking advantage
of the difficult conditions of illegality, and supported also by
undercover enemy elements within the Executive Committee of the
Communist International and in certain national Communist Parties of
that time, the left sectarians Iskrov, Georgi Lambrev and Elia Vasilev
(Boiko)3 succeeded, through organised factional activity, in holding
a plenum of the Central Committee during the summer of 1929, and in
fact taking over the Party leadership. Under the guise of
bolshevisation of the Party, the left-sectarians actually pursued an
anti-Bolshevik course. They put forward the slogan "extirpation of
narrow socialism", waged an insidious struggle against loyal Party
members of long standing, against the revolutionary past of the Party,
and pushed the Party along the disastrous road leading to isolation
from the masses. This was made easier by the inactivity of a number of
old and well-known Party militants inside the country, who had then
withdrawn from Party work at that time.

The left sectarian faction became the main obstacle to the
bolshevisation of the Party. At the very moment when the fascist
dictatorship was persecuting our Party and seeking to break it up from
within, and to smash its leadership, it found its best allies in the
leaders of the left sectarian faction. What is more, as was
subsequently revealed in the U.S.S.R. in connection with the exposure
of foreign enemy agencies inside the Bolshevik Party and some other
Communist Parties, some of these left sectarian leaders were in the
service of these agencies.

Yet in spite of the temporary ascendancy of the left sectarian faction,
there existed sufficient sound forces within the Party to lead the
struggle of the working people on a local scale during the new upsurge
of the labour movement.

The stagnation which had gripped the entire labour and progressive
movement after the 1923-25 defeats was gradually being overcome. In
1927 the Workers' Party was formed as a legal party of the working
class: trade unions were re-established. The Workers' Party, acting
under the illegal Communist Party, managed in no time to win
considerable authority among the masses. Signs of a new revolutionary
upsurge of the masses became apparent. Big strikes broke out, major
electoral victories were scored and legal possibilities began to be
widely used. The Party was growing and moving boldly forward. Its
successes would undoubtedly have been much greater, however, had it not
been for the harmful influence of the left sectarian faction. Thus, for
instance, their second plenum instead of concentrating on the Party's
taking over the leadership of the new militant upsurge of the masses,
entered into scholastic sectarian discussions about the Party's past
and composed sheaves of resolutions which no worker could read through.
And again, through the fault of this faction, our Party could not carry
to a successful conclusion the breakthrough in the front of the fascist
dictatorship in the summer of 1931, as well as during the coup d'etat
of 19 May 1934.4

The left sectarian policy, which in reality was a Trotskyist policy,
had nothing in common with the line of the Communist International and
was directed against it.

1. Instead of a sober appraisal of the situation on the basis of a
concrete Marxist analysis of the forces, in action, the general
formulas of Leninist-Stalinist strategy and tactics were being
re-iterated and the conditions of the other Communist parties were
mechanically applied without taking into consideration our concrete
situation. The left sectarians took credit for the successes scored by
the Party in spite of their leadership, and proclaimed as its immediate
task the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship in Bulgaria.

2. Persevering and steadfast agitation among the workers and peasants
for the popularisation of party slogans, for the preparation of the
struggle and the mobilisation of the masses were superseded by
"revolutionary" phrases left and bombastic appeals for "revolutionary"
action. Such typically left sectarian slogans were: "A general and open
offensive," "Take over the streets," "Occupy the land" etc.

The slogan of a political strike was so discredited by the left
sectarians that the revolutionary trade union international was
compelled specifically to condemn its use in Bulgaria.

3. Real leadership, based on a conscious adoption by the members of the
party and of the mass organisations of the Party decisions and
directives, gave way to rude and mechanical ordering about. The
attitude of the left sectarian leadership toward the Workers’ Party
which our Party had created was incorrect and exceedingly harmful.
Although the Workers’ Party numbered among its members many workers
with experience in mass work, and although it served as a transmission
belt through which the Communist Party exerted its influence on the
masses, its local leaders were treated as second-rank people. After the
coup of May 19, 1934, when the Workers’ Party and the other mass
organisations were banned, the left sectarian leadership put up no
opposition and hastened to declare the Workers’ Party as
“self-liquidated.”

4. Under the guise of a false "bolshevisation" the entire "narrow"
socialist period of the Party was proclaimed as "Menshevik" and
"anti-Bolshevik." Under the pretext of defending the September
uprising, a Trotskyite "criticism" of that uprising was popularised and
the September activists of the Party were ostracised. The left
sectarian leadership even went so far as to sabotage the international
anti-fascist campaign in connection with the Leipzig trial.

5. Having temporarily, and with the help of their Trotskyite friends
from abroad, seized control of the internal leadership of the Party,
the left sectarians formed themselves into a secret Trotskyite faction
inside the Party. Under the guise of Leninism and using the authority
of the Communist International in a double-faced way, they were
destroying the basis of the Party and discrediting the revolutionary
movement.

The support received by the Party in its struggle to overcome left
sectarianism, from the Communist International and from the Bolshevik
Party, especially as regards the Second Plenum of the Central
Committee, whose harmful decisions were rejected by the Executive
Committee of the Communist International, should be gratefully
acknowledged.

The resolution of the political secretariat of the Executive Committee
of the Communist International of August 1930 played an exceedingly
important role for our Party. It dealt with the basic problems of the
Communist movement in Bulgaria and served as a solid basis for uniting
the sound forces within the Party on a genuine Marxist-Leninist policy.

This resolution clearly pointed out the revolutionary Marxist elements
in the "narrow" socialist period which the Party should not renounce
but of which it should become the "conscious protagonist and
elaborator."

At the same time, it clearly showed the difference between "narrow"
socialism and Leninism on the basic questions of the proletarian
revolution. It defined the September uprising as a decisive
turning-point in the party's bolshevisation, as the beginning of a
Bolshevik crystallisation amidst the old and new Party cadres which was
impeded by the insufficiently consistent ideological struggle of the
Party leadership against the vestiges of the non-Bolshevik traditions
and against the infantile disease of leftism.

The resolution called on the Party to completely overcome those
vestiges of the “narrow” socialist period which impeded it during its
transition from a purely agitational and propagandist organisation to a
Party struggling for power. It also summoned it to unite around a
common platform for a struggle against the main danger –opportunism,
tailism, and passivity as well as against left sectarianism.

The Political Secretariat of the Executive Committee of the Communist
International told the Party fight resolutely against factionalism and
the rising danger of the Party’s disintegration into factions.

The process of uniting the Party on the platform of the Communist
International was impeded by the left sectarians who adopted it in
words but hid from the Party and the Communist International their own
disagreement with it, proceeding to revise it in a left sectarian
spirit.

The Party’s very existence and development was again at stake. All
forces had to be mobilized in order to save it by liquidating the left
sectarian line: by taking the Party leadership out of the hands of the
left sectarians, and by making a decisive about turn from
“revolutionary” phrase-mongering to truly Bolshevik mass work and
struggle. Only a rapid overcoming of the sectarian distortions in all
phases of its work could enable the Party to re-establish its contacts
with the masses and to build a united people’s anti-fascist front for
the overthrow of the military fascist dictatorship.

In spite of serious difficulties, due to the conditions of illegality
and fascist terror, our Party, with the aid of the Communist
International succeeded in coping with this important task.

5. The New Bolshevik Line of the Party

The 7th Congress of the Communist International brought about a change
in policy of the Communist Parties, by placing as the basic and
immediate task the struggle against fascism as the greatest threat to
the working class and the toilers, to peace, and to the freedom of the
peoples. It was necessary to rally the working class, and on that basis
to create a powerful people's anti­fascist front, in order to stop the
fascist onslaught and to smash fascism. The translation of the united
front into practice made it incumbent on the Communists to overcome the
smug sectarianism within their own ranks which had become a deeply
rooted evil. By overestimating the degree of revolutionisation of the
masses and underestimating the struggles for the immediate interests
and rights of the toilers, sectarianism led to passivity in the face of
the fascist offensive. By substituting abstract propaganda and left
doctrinaire phrases for a mass policy, by stereotyping the slogans and
tactics of all countries and by disregarding the specific peculiarities
existing in every particular nation, sectarianism delayed the growth of
the Communist Parties, impeded the unfolding of a genuine mass
struggle, and blocked the winning over of the broad masses of toilers
by the Communist Parties. At the same time, the Communist Parties had
also to be vigilant also with respect to the right danger which was
bound to grow with the wide application of the united front, and to
manifest itself through spontaneity and automatism, depreciation of the
role of the Party and vacillation at the decisive moment.

This was the fundamental thesis of the 7th Congress of the Communist
International. Its decisions played a decisive role in helping our
Party make an about turn and become truly Bolshevik in character. The
resolution of the Communist International against the left sectarian
leadership in connection with the events of May 19, 1934, had already
raised sharply the question of the changing that self-styled leadership
which was completely incapable of bringing about a turn in the Party.
This change was carried out completely, early in 1935.

The new Party leadership, in its open letter of October 1, 1935, basing
itself on the 1934 resolution of the Communist International, gave a
clear exposure of the essence of the left opportunist sectarian policy
of the preceding years, when certain petty-bourgeois doctrinaire
elements – sectarians and factionists – had temporarily gained the
upper hand in the party leadership and imposed their left opportunist
sectarian policy." Basing itself on the decisions of the 7th Congress
of the Communist International, the open letter formulated as the
fundamental tasks of the Party: (a) to build a united people's
anti-fascist front and (b) to organise the working class, through a
general consolidation of the Party.

The decisions of the 6th plenary session of the Party in February 1936
constitute a correct and consistent elaboration of its new Bolshevik
line in the light of the decisions of the 7th World Congress. This
elaboration consisted in the following:

1. As the fundamental immediate task the Plenum stressed the building
of a people's anti-fascist front of all anti-fascist organisations in
the struggle for the following basic political demands:
re-establishment of the Tirnovo Constitution, elections to the National
Assembly according to the old electoral law, repeal of all
anti-communist decrees, dissolution of all fascist organisations. All
the sound people's forces were to be united firmly behind these demands.

At the same time the Party proposed to all organisations of working
people, a common struggle for the satisfaction of their basic needs. It
expressed its readiness to support the government of a people's
anti-fascist front which would carry through the above platform,
although it considered that a radical improvement of the situation of
the masses and the fullest and most consistent defence of people's
liberties, of peace and national independence could only be achieved by
a Soviet Government in Bulgaria.

2. The Plenum completely approved the dismissal of the left sectarian
leadership and the entrusting of the Party leadership to tested
supporters of its new Bolshevik line. At the same time it stressed the
need for sharper criticism of the left sectarian policy in order to
expose its anti-Leninist and Trotskyite character before the rank and
file the need of carrying out thorough-going and systematic education,
for a conscious assimilation, not in words but in deeds, of the new
Party line.

3. The Plenum worked out a detailed directive for rallying and
enlisting in practical work all loyal Party cadres, young and old, for
a genuine and conscious unification of the Party on Marxist-Leninist
basis and around its Central Committee.

Thanks to this new Bolshevik line, the Party re-established its contact
with the masses, and its role in the political life of the nation
increased rapidly.

Although not without difficulties, the people's anti-fascist front grew
despite the resistance and sabotage of the right-wing leaders of the
other non-fascist parties. The anti-fascist front and, in particular,
the Party proved a great political force at the parliamentary and
communal elections.

The main internal enemies, against whom the people's anti-fascist front
waged its struggle, were the protagonists of fascism – the government of
King Boris, and Tsankov's so-called Social Movement. The main external
enemy which threatened peace and Bulgaria's national independence was
Hitler Germany and fascist Italy. Against this double peril, the
peoples anti-fascist front mobilised the masses for a struggle for
peace, against the instigators of war and their Bulgarian lackeys, for
defence of Bulgaria's national independence for friendly relations with
all neighbouring countries, for collective security and common defence
of all big and small democratic nations which pursued a policy of peace
and democracy, against war and fascism.

The feverish preparations of Nazi Germany for a new world war, Hitler's
aggression in Austria and Czechoslovakia and the attempts of the German
imperialists, with the aid of Bulgarian monarcho-fascism, to rule
Bulgaria and include it in their Lebensraum, and then the outbreak of
World War II in the wake of the German aggression against Poland,
threatened to engulf Bulgaria and the Balkans in the war. The Party
correctly felt that the U.S.S.R. was the one sure factor for the
preservation of peace in the Balkans and the independence of the Balkan
peoples.

The Party, therefore, raised as the first task of Bulgaria's foreign
policy the conclusion of a pact of friendship and mutual aid with the
Soviet Union. Should Bulgaria, however, find herself faced by the
threat of aggression or actually be attacked by either of the two
warring parties in the hopes of pushing her into the war, the Bulgarian
people would fight with all their forces for the defence of freedom and
independence linking this fight with the defence of the Soviet Union.

Under these conditions, the Party directed its main efforts toward a
unification of all democratic forces in defence of peace and national
independence, of the liberties and basic needs of the masses, against
war, reaction and capitalist plunder.

The Soviet Government's offer in December 1940, through its emissary
Sobolev, to conclude with the Bulgarian Government a pact of friendship
and mutual aid, bore out the Party's correct stand for a pro-Soviet
orientation and strengthened its position among the people. It became
the centre of a powerful popular movement for the conclusion of a
friendship pact with the U.S.S.R. Outside this people's movement there
remained only the openly capitalist and reactionary elements from both
camps – the pro-Germans and the pro-British – who were united in their
hatred against the U.S.S.R. and Bolshevism.

The 7th Party Plenum in January 1941 took place under the banner of the
struggle against Bulgaria's entry into the war. The Party realised that
the fascist Government of King Boris, in rejecting the Soviet offer,
had hitched Bulgaria to the bandwagon of Nazi Germany – a circumstance
which could not but increase the approaching danger of Bulgaria's being
drawn into the vortex of the war. It carried through a still more
energetic propaganda among the masses for a pact with the U.S.S.R. and
against participation in the war.

As a result, disorders broke out in many localities among the mobilised
Bulgarian soldiers along the frontier, who refused to obey the orders
of their officers. Slogans were put forward for a return to home,
against Bulgaria's entering the war on the side of Nazi Germany. The
Hitlerite occupationists and their Bulgarian quislings realised quite
clearly that Bulgaria was far from constituting a safe rear, that their
criminal policy could not rely on the support of the Bulgarian people.

Hitler's foul aggression against the U.S.S.R. on June 21, 1941
basically changed the international situation. World War II, which had
started as a war between two imperialist camps, became a war of the
freedom-loving peoples, headed by the Soviet Union, against Nazi
aggression. From its very outbreak our Party adopted a firm stand
against the Nazi German bloc and its Bulgarian hirelings. As early as
June 22 the Party's Central Committee issued a manifesto to the
Bulgarian people, in which the positions were clearly formulated.

It reads as follows:

"Never before in history has there been a more brigandlike, more
counter­revolutionary and imperialist war than the one fascism is now
waging against the U.S.S.R. Hence, there is no juster and more
progressive war than the one on whose issue will depend the destinies
of all nations. So just a war cannot but enjoy the sympathy and support
of every honest and progressive person in the world... The Bulgarian
people, who in their overwhelming, majority harbour a deep love for the
fraternal Soviet peoples and pin on them their greatest hopes for a
better future, are faced with the colossal task of preventing their
country and army from being used for the brigand purposes of German
fascism...

"Be vigilant and oppose resolutely all measures which the government
may take to involve us in the war or to put our country in the service
of the fascist brigands! Not one grain of Bulgarian wheat, not one
piece of Bulgarian bread for the German fascists and plunderers! Not a
single Bulgarian in their service!"

In the same appeal the Central Committee characterised the Hitler
aggression against the U.S.S.R. as a "reckless adventure," in which
"Hitler is bound to break his neck."

On June 24, 1941, the Politburo of the Party began to prepare the
Bulgarian people for an armed struggle against the Nazi occupationists
and their local quislings. A special military commission was formed in
order to carry through this preparation. Armed military units were
organised for diversionist and sabotage activities with the aim of
disrupting German communications, of destroying plants and warehouses
serving the Nazis, and of organising workers for the sabotage of
production, (as a result, in several plants output fell by 40-50
percent), of inducing peasants to conceal agricultural produce etc. The
slogan was to attack German units and bases, and in general to create
in the country difficult conditions for the Germans and their local
quislings, and to disrupt and paralyse their war effort. At the same
time the Party proceeded to intensify its work in the army, under the
slogan "Not a soldier to the Eastern Front!" Among the soldiers of' the
occupation troops of Yugoslavia, the slogan was raised to fraternise
with the Yugoslav partisans and to go over to their side. As early as
1941 the first partisan units were born in the districts of Razlog,
Batak, Karlovo, Eastern Sredna Gora, Sevlievo, Gabrovo etc.

This heroic struggle involved many sacrifices and sufferings: scores of
fighters dangled from the gallows or were shot, partisan heads were
paraded in towns and villages, prisons and concentration camps were
overcrowd. Yet in spite of the bestial terror, the struggle gained in
momentum. The greater the setbacks the Germans suffered on the Eastern
Front as a result of the Soviet victories, the clearer became the
perspectives of Hitler Germany's inevitable defeat and the brighter the
conditions for rallying all patriotic forces among the people in the
Fatherland Front, which was founded on our Party's initiative towards
the middle of 1942 with the publication of its programme.

The Fatherland Front programme clearly and categorically stated that
Hitler's plan for world domination was bound to end with the downfall
of Nazi Germany and that the policy of the King Boris government, which
had turned Bulgaria into a vassal of Hitler, was directed against the
people and would lead the nation to disaster. Hence, it was the supreme
duty of the Bulgarian people, its army and patriotic intelligentsia to
unite behind the powerful Fatherland Front for the salvation of
Bulgaria.

The programme demanded that Bulgaria's brigand alliance with Nazi
Germany should be broken immediately; that the German aggressors be
expelled from Bulgarian soil; that national wealth and labour be
protected against foreign incursions; that the political rights of the
working people be re-established, extended and consolidated; that the
army be taken out the hands of the monarcho-fascist clique and
transformed into a people's army, so that the material and moral forces
of our people should be added to the efforts of other peoples, under
the leadership of the U.S.S.R., for the complete defeat of the German
imperialists. The programme urged all anti­fascist forces unite in the
Fatherland Front and a Fatherland Front government be created in order
to ensure our political and economic development as a free and
independent nation, closely allied with the other freedom-loving
peoples and especially with the Soviet Union.

The Party considered that the struggle for the destruction of domestic
fascism embraced all the essential problems of the life and future of
the working people and of the entire nation. Without the destruction of
the fascist regime the country could not be wrested from the fascist
camp and saved from catastrophe, ruin and retrogression. The more
evident the inevitable and ignominious end of Nazi Germany became, the
more fully the Bulgarian people realised that our fascist regime, which
had completely identified its fate with Hitler's slave owners' policy,
represented the main danger which had to be immediately removed.
Bulgaria's liberation from the shackles of fascism followed from the
entire international and domestic position, and became the central task
of the working class, of the working people from towns and countryside,
and of all truly democratic and patriotic forces.

Such then, was the national and democratic platform of our Party during
the war for the liberation of the country from fascism and German
occupation. It met with a deep response, rallied the bulk of the people
under the banner of the Fatherland Front and became a truly national
cause.

The Party considered that the realisation of this programme was an
inevitable and decisive stage for the country's further development of
the on the road to radical political, economic and social
transformation.

Armed with this militant program, the Party exerted all its energies
quickly to make the Fatherland front a truly national movement, to
broaden the resistance movement and give it a mass character.

During the second half of 1942, there was a considerable surge forward
in the struggle of the masses against the Nazi occupationists and their
Bulgarian tools. In several] localities numerically small partisan
units grew into organised detachments enjoying wide support among the
people. In the winter of 1942-43 partisan detachments in Sredna Gora
waged memorable and epic struggles against some 20,000 gendarmes and
soldiers. During March-April 1943. by C.C.'s decision, the, the country
was divided into 12 guerrilla combat zones with a unified military
leadership, The attacks of partisan detachments against the Germans and
the quisling authorities in towns and villages went hand in hand with a
broad political activity among the population. The more defeats the
Nazi hordes suffered on the Eastern front, especially after the blow at
Stalingrad, the fiercer became the partisan struggle and the more the
people from all parts of the country were drawn into the partisan
movement.

Toward the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944, an army of 100,000
soldiers and police under fascist command were involved in the struggle
against the partisan movement. The inability of Hitler and King Boris
to send a single Bulgarian soldier to the Eastern front was primarily
due to the fact that the main forces of the Bulgarian army were
fighting the partisans, both in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

It was a truly epic period, a real test for our Party and for the
Bulgarian people. We can safely say that our Party, backed mainly by
the Communist youth, in spite of terrific casualties, bestial terror
and opportunist vacillations of some Party members, passed this test
with honour. This period will remain inscribed with gold letters in the
annals of our Party and our people, who can justly pride themselves
with their heroic partisans, men and women and those who aided them,
whom the Party managed to organise and lead to battle against the
German occupationists and Bulgarian fascists.

The growing scope of the partisan movement, helped by the victorious
advance of the Soviet Army and the fascists' failure to cope with it,
inspired the people and consolidated their faith in ultimate victory,
emboldened and activised our allies in the Fatherland Front.

The Fatherland Front grew in the course of the struggle for the basic
needs of the masses and against Bulgaria's spoliation and enslavement
by the German fascist imperialists. Our Party was at its sparking plug,
but other non-fascist parties and organisations were drawn into its
activity.

In 1944, the serious and irreparable defeats of the German hordes on
all fronts, the lightning advance of the Soviet armies towards Germany,
the capitulation of fascist Italy, the approach of the Fourth Ukrainian
army towards Bulgaria's frontiers – all this hastened the downfall of
Nazi Germany. Panic and disintegration set in among our local quislings
and the ruling monarcho-fascist clique. Their attempts to drown the
partisan movement in blood failed. Their attempt to split the
Fatherland Front also failed. Intent on forestalling the maturing
people's uprising, they turned through the Bagrianov government and
then through the Muraviev-Gichev5 government to the Anglo-American
Chief of Staff with an offer for unconditional surrender. They hoped,
in case of an Anglo-American occupation, to escape punishment for their
crimes, and to preserve the shaky foundations of the
monarcho-capitalist regime.

This scheme, however, was foiled by the lightning advance of the Soviet armies and the vigilance of our Party.

On August 26, 1944, our Party's Central Committee addressed to all its
organisations, functionaries and members, the historic Circular No.4,
calling for the immediate overthrow, through an armed uprising, of the
fascist Regency and the Bagrianov government and for the establishment
of a Fatherland Front government. This circular stated among other
things:

"The 12th hour has struck for Bulgaria.

"Its fate today depends solely on the people and the patriotic army.
Our country is doomed unless the self-imposed Regency and pro-German
government of Bagrianov are immediately overthrown and the alliance
with Germany broken.

"The Party, the Fatherland Front, the entire Bulgarian people and the
army, are faced by the imperative task of gathering forces and rising
to a bold and decisive armed struggle.

"The Fatherland Front is the only political force capable of saving the country by immediate bold and decisive action."

The same day the general staff of the People's Partisan Army issued the order:

"Proceed with the general offensive and establish Fatherland Front
authorities on a local basis. Direct the main blows against the big
centres, especially where you can count on the support of separate army
units."

Conscious of its historic mission, at the head of proletariat, the
Party made full use of its past militant experience – victories and
setbacks – gathered all its forces, staked its immense authority,
counting on the decisive of the Soviet army, in order to mobilize the
Bulgarian people united in the Fatherland Front for the armed overthrow
of most dangerous and devilish bastion of capitalism and reaction in
Bulgaria – the monarcho-fascist dictatorship.

When on September 8 the Soviet armies stepped onto Bulgarian soil, the
armed uprising was already in full swing. In Plovdiv, Gabrovo and in
the Pernik mines general strikes broke out. In Sofia the tramway
workers went on strike and the population came out on the streets,
while in Pleven, Varna and Sliven the prisons were stormed. At the same
time partisan detachments occupied many towns and villages. Under the
iron pressure of the Soviet armies, the German hordes beat a hasty
retreat from Bulgaria. Our soldiers refused to carry out the orders of
the reactionary officers and deserted to the partisans.

The victory of the uprising was ensured. On September 9, under the
hammer blows of the united people's masses, assisted by the partisan
detachments and the revolutionary soldiers and officers, the loathed
monarcho-fascist dictatorship collapsed and the first people's
government in Bulgaria – the Fatherland Front government – was
established.

However, the greatest credit for the victory of the September 9
uprising and the liberation of our country from the German fascist yoke
is due to the heroic fraternal Soviet army and its far-sighted leader
Generalissimo Stalin. The Party, the working class, and all our working
people will remain forever grateful for that.

II. The September 9th Uprising Cleared the Path for the Building of Socialism in Our Country.

1. From September 9th, 1944 to the Grand National Assembly Elections

Comrades,

The September 9 armed people's uprising is a turning-point in our history.

On September 9, 1944 the political power in our country was wrested
from the hands of the capitalist bourgeoisie and the monarcho-fascist
minority of exploiters and passed into the hands of the vast majority,
the working people from towns and villages, under the guidance of the
working class and its vanguard – the Communist Party. Having triumphed
with the decisive aid of the heroic Red Army, the September 9 uprising
cleared the road for building socialism in our country.

The combination of the September 9, 1944 people's anti-fascist uprising
and the victorious advance of the Soviet army in the Balkans ensured
the triumph of the uprising and gave it great impetus. The hatred
against fascism, accumulated in the course of two decades, and the
determination of the working people to do away with it, burst forth
irrepressibly and swept away the fascist regime at one blow. The
anti-popular bourgeois-fascist police apparatus was smashed to pieces
and a people's militia was formed to crush the opposition of the
fascist elements and to the defend the people's uprising. Power was
wrested from the capitalist class, united around the monarchy and
closely allied with German imperialism. It passed into the hands of the
militant alliance of workers, peasants, artisans and intellectuals
united in the Fatherland Front, and under the leadership of our Party.
The state power radically changed in character: the instrument for
oppression and exploitation of the masses in the interests of the
capitalists was dismantled and a people's government was created, as an
instrument for the annihilation of capitalism and for the gradual
liberation of the working people from exploitation of all kinds.

True, the old bourgeois state machine was not completely smashed on
September 9. The Communists were still a minority in the newly formed
cabinet. Many key posts were still in the hands of individuals some of
whom later proved unstable and even hostile to the people's regime. It
was the

Party, however, which animated and spark plug of the anti-fascist
movement: In many localities power was actually in the hands of the
Fatherland Front committees. Our Party held the Ministry of the
Interior as well as the newly-created Institute for Assistant
Commanders in the army. This was in the interest of the people, because
only our Party could organise the suppression of the overthrown
monarcho-fascist clique, ensure internal order and the successful
participation of the reorganised army in the War against Hitler
Germany. The Party's great power and influence among the people, as
well as its position in the Fatherland Front Committees, enabled it to
assume in practice a leading role in the government and to wage a
successful fight against the fascist reactionaries and their stooges
within the ranks of the Fatherland Front.

New people, springing up from the midst of the working class, came to
the fore. Vast masses of people, long oppressed under the jackboot of
fascist dictatorship, awoke to active political life and, under the
leadership of the Party, played their part in various administrative
bodies. A new type of people's democratic government was created and
perfected.

Although its immediate tasks were of a democratic character, the
September 9 uprising could not but shake the capitalist system in our
country to its very foundation, thus transcending the limits of
bourgeois democracy.

This, then, is the salient feature of the September 9 uprising.

You cannot eliminate fascism, grant democratic rights to the working
masses, consolidate and develop these rights without challenging the
very rule of capitalism, for fascism is nothing but the ruthless,
terrorist dictatorship of big business. The eradication of fascism
cannot be completed without challenging big business. Democratic rights
cannot be granted to the working people if big business preserves its
political and economic power. The September 9 uprising, therefore,
undertaking the solution of problems of a democratic character together
with the great national problem of our people's participation in the
war for the final destruction of Hitlerism, could not but turn
subsequently against the domination of big business, deal it further
serious blows and prepare the ground for its abolition, for the
abolition of the entire capitalist system and the transition to
socialism.

However, in order to translate these possibilities into reality our Party had to wage a bitter struggle.

The primary task was to defend and consolidate the victory of September
9. The Party had to reach clarity about the conditions under which the

uprising was carried out, about the most imperative measures to be
taken, and about the possible scope of the tasks which could be
immediately fulfilled.

The September 9 uprising took place while the war against Nazi Germany
was still on. The victorious ending of the war took priority of course
over all other tasks and nothing could be undertaken which could
possibly impede victory. We must not overlook this important
circumstance nor should we forget, when appraising our Party's activity
during the period of the country's development after September 9 until
the end of the war and the signing of the peace treaty, that our
country, as a former satellite of Nazi Germany, was under the
supervision of an Allied Control Commission, on which were British and
American representatives antagonistic to the people's regime. On the
other hand, in the interest of its national existence and in defence of
her freedom, Bulgaria had to join the war against Nazi Germany on the
side and under the command of the Soviet Union.

A sober estimate of the international and national situation was
imperative under these circumstances. Those questions only could
tackled which were already ripe for solution so as not to skip any
stages in the development of the struggle of the working class and
working people of town and countryside against capitalism. In this
respect our Party was fully aware of its historic responsibility before
the working class and all working people.

On September 9 and afterwards our Party went all out to rally the
democratic and patriotic forces of the entire nation in the name of the
final and ruthless destruction of the monarcho-fascist clique and to
mobilize all the country's material and moral resources of the country
in the common fight of all freedom-loving peoples under the leadership
of the Soviet Union. Our Party carried out this central task
successfully. Bulgaria contributed to the best of its abilities to the
liberation of the Balkans from the Hitlerite invaders and to their
final defeat. "Everything for the front, everything for victory in the
war against Hitler Germany" – that was the supreme slogan of the Party,
of the Fatherland Front and of the nation during this period. All other
questions were subordinated to this. The Party fought against every
departure from this slogan. It opposed the leftist deviations in its
own ranks, the impatience of individual comrades, who thought we should
immediately proceed with the socialist transformation of society.

The policy of the greatest unification of all the people's
anti-fascist, democratic and patriotic forces, including anti-German
elements from amongst the bourgeoisie, for the total destruction of the
fascist clique, the victorious participation in the war, defence and
safeguarding of our national independence, territorial integrity and
state sovereignty, was the only correct policy. Its realisation was a
pre-condition and guarantee of the preservation and further development
of the historic achievements of the September 9 uprising. It enabled
the Party to keep close to the masses, to strengthen its positions and
to isolate the enemies of the uprising and of the people's authority.
Our Party's Central Committee carried through this policy firmly and
steadfastly.

A smashing blow was dealt to the openly fascist elements during that
period. Severe punishment was meted out to the representatives of
fascism and the German agents responsible for our brigand's alliance
with German imperialism and for bringing the nation to the brink of a
third disaster. The fascist organisations were dissolved. The
political, economic and cultural organisations of the working people
grew by leaps and bounds. Many major democratic reforms were carried
out. Women were granted full equality and given all facilities to
participate actively in public life. Broad vistas opened up for the
youth. Full equality was also granted to the national minorities and
their schools were given state support. A law on land6 property was
passed, limiting landholdings to two hundred decares (except Dobrudja
where the limit is 300 decares). Another law provided for the
confiscation of all illegally acquired wealth. Measures were taken to
ensure the popular character of the army. The institution of
assistant-commanders, tested sons of the people and fighters against
fascism, was introduced to the army.

The entire state apparatus was overhauled and put on a new, and popular
basis. The democratic rights and liberties of the broad masses were
consolidated. These and similar changes found their expression and
confirmation in the abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of
the People's Republic.

On the economic front all efforts were concentrated on the
rehabilitation of the war-ravaged national economy, ruthlessly
plundered by the Germans and further damaged by two consecutive
droughts. But the time was not yet ripe for major economic changes. The
war was still in progress and Bulgaria's still unsettled international
status, with the presence of the Allied Control Commission in Sofia,
made an immediate assault on the economic basis of capitalist reaction
impossible. The big estates, banking and commercial enterprises
remained in the hands of private capitalists.

It is true that the capitalists were no longer absolute masters of
their enterprises and capitals. Public control was instituted. The role
of the trade unions grew immensely. But however much the rule of the
capitalists was limited, they remained the owners of their enterprises
and they exploited this fact in order to hinder in every way possible,
the development of production and of government measures. Possessing an
economic base, they were able to exert a certain pressure on the
people's regime. It was still necessary to wage a hard struggle
completely to eliminate completely the capitalist elements from their
political and economic positions.

The September 9 blow of against the people's enemies as represented by
the fascist clique was so powerful that for a certain time the
capitalist bourgeoisie crept under cover. However, this did not mean
that they had abandoned their intention of turning back the clock of
history.

With their economic base and backed by reactionary American and British
circles, our capitalist bourgeoisie soon attempted to translate these
hopes and intentions into reality. They had their own agents inside the
Fatherland Front in the right-wing reactionary elements who had hidden
themselves in some of the Fatherland Front parties. Not yet ready to
start an open struggle against the people's regime, they made use of
these reactionary elements who soon after September 9 began to wage a
fierce fight against the Communist Party and to challenge its leading
role, while striving to disrupt our economy, hinder the carrying out
government measures, discredit the Party, weaken the Fatherland Front
and prepare the ground for a restoration.

Our Party had to organise the struggle of the working people for
decisive resistance against the concerted and growing efforts of
domestic and international reaction to subvert the gains of September
9. It had to be very vigilant and display great powers of manoeuvre,
tact and determination in order to emerge as victor in this tough
struggle. Our Party, under the leadership of the Central Committee,
fulfilled this task with honour. It came up to the mark during that
period as the leader of the Fatherland Front, of the workers and of the
entire people.

The Bulgarian working people remember with what energy and
determination the Party called them out into the streets against the
notorious "fourth decree"7 of Damian Velchev,8 by which the
reactionary elements inside the Fatherland Front government wanted to
save from the people's wrath their erstwhile butchers who had hidden in
the army, and to use them as cadres for staging their plots. At the
same time our Party unmasked the self-styled Agrarian "leader", the
notorious foreign agent Gemeto (G.M. Dimitrov),9 on whom the
reactionary Anglo-American circles were banking in the struggle against
our people's regime. Gemeto attempted to organise the right-wing
reactionary elements within the Fatherland Front in an anti­Communist
bloc. These elements tried to abolish the Fatherland Front committees,
pretending that they had already become out-of-date, to transform the
Fatherland Front into an ordinary inter-party coalition, and to oppose
Bulgaria's participation in the anti-fascist war together with and
under the leadership of the Soviet army. They carried out an insidious
propaganda against the People's Militia and the People's Courts,
preached defeatism on the front and in the rear and engaged in
defeatist activities.

Our Party succeeded in exposing Gemeto and his political friends in the
eyes of the broad masses as enemy agents, and isolated and smashed them
by seeking an ever closer alliance with the sound forces in the
Fatherland Front and especially with the Agrarian Union. The infamous
Dr. G.M. Dimitrov soon became a general without an army and despised
and repudiated, hid in the American Legation in Sofia and fled
ignominiously to the United States.

The unsuccessful debut and failure of Gemeto, as the chief agent of
American and British imperialism in Bulgaria, compelled the latter to
seek other tools. With the cessation of hostilities the pressure of
British and American reactionary circles on our country increased.
Under their direct orders Nikola Petkov10 and Grigor Chesmedjiev11 and their followers split off from the Fatherland Front and formed
a vicious anti-popular opposition – the unconcealed agency of American
imperialism.

The still unsettled international status of our country, the open
intervention of American imperialists in our domestic affairs (the
postponement of the elections scheduled for August 26, 1945), the
considerable economic, supply and other difficulties due to the German
robbery and ravages of war, created favourable conditions for the
opposition leaders to start subversive and disintegrating activity
against the Fatherland Front, the people's power and our Party.

Nevertheless, the anti-popular opposition suffered a great fiasco. The
boycott of the elections for the 27th Ordinary National Assembly proved
a failure. In the subsequent elections for the Grand National Assembly
the Fatherland Front won a brilliant victory, winning over 70 percent
of the votes, notwithstanding all the blackmail, threats of foreign
intervention, demagogy, anti-Communist slander and distortion of the
Fatherland Front programme engaged in by the opposition during the
electoral campaign. Our Party alone got more than 50 percent of the
votes and a clear majority in the Grand National Assembly.

The results of these elections showed that the working people put their
complete trust in our Party, as the leading force in the administration
of the country and in its socialist reconstruction. In a normal and
free election on the basis of a general and equal electoral law with
secret ballot, the leading role of our Party in the Fatherland Front
and in the nation was confirmed also in a parliamentary way. The Party
could now march forward still more firmly and confidently on the road
opened up by the September 9 popular uprising.

Despite the active resistance of the opposition, a peace treaty was
concluded and diplomatic relations with the U.S.A. and Great Britain
resumed. The broad educational work carried out by the Party and the
Fatherland Front among the peasants and townsfolk temporarily misled by
the opposition, completely isolated it from the people. Repudiated by
the people, the opposition leaders began to hatch plots for the violent
overthrow of the people's authority with the aid of foreign
intervention, which later brought about the downfall of Nikola Petkov's
pseudo-Agrarian Union.

Under the leadership of our Party several reactionary plots were
uncovered and liquidated. The same fate befell the conspiracy of Damian
Velchev's group. The army was purged of reactionary officers.

Our Party brought the struggle against the reactionary opposition to a
close, fighting for the greatest possible unification of all sound
democratic and patriotic forces under the banner of the Fatherland
Front. It completely exposed the national treachery of the opposition
leaders who had become foreign agents. This was a sharp class struggle.
The enemies of the working class were also enemies of our nation. At
the same time, the Party did its utmost to consolidate the positions of
the working class, to strengthen the alliance between workers and
peasants and to close the ranks of the Fatherland Front. It based its
activity on the idea that henceforth it would have to lead the growing
democratic political army of the Fatherland Front by making proper of
the forces and possibilities of all its various sections for the
country's democratic development. It realised that particular groups
and individuals, vacillating and inconsistent Fatherland Front
supporters, would drop off from this army, depending on the character
of the tasks it would have to grapple with. It understood that within
army a consistent fight had to be waged against the agents of fascism
and capitalist reaction. It also knew that the process of common work
and struggle under the leadership of the Communist Party, the different
detachments of this army would get closer together, the Fatherland
Front would become more firmly united and the authority and dominant
role of our Party within it would continue to grow.

Our Party's policy for the greatest possible unification of all
democratic and patriotic forces under the banner of the Fatherland
Front undoubtedly consolidated the positions of the working class, led
to our people's complete victory over reaction and ensured the carrying
out of the Fatherland From programme.

The dominant role of the working class was clearly expressed in the
composition of the new Fatherland Front government, formed after the
elections to the Grand National Assembly. The key positions were
occupied by Communists and trusted Fatherland Front leaders.

The Fatherland Front was also consolidated. Its right-wing elements
were eliminated (Damian Velchev, Yurukov12 and their like). Our main
ally, the Agrarian Union, under the leadership of its tested leaders,
supporters of the Fatherland Front, weeded out the vacillating and
double-faced elements from its ranks and openly declared itself in
favour of a militant alliance of peasants and workers under working
class leadership, of socialist construction and of the socialist
transformation of agriculture on the basis of co-operative farms and a
consistent policy of rendering powerless and liquidating the kulak
exploiters in the villages. Mutual confidence and understanding between
the Fatherland Front parties increased.

The offensive of domestic and international reaction was thus beaten
off. The struggle ended with the victory of the working class and the
people. An exceedingly important phase of the hard struggle of our
Party and of the Fatherland Front for the successful defence of the
historic gains of the September 9 uprising came to a close.

In this context it must be emphasised that if the assault of domestic
and international reaction during that period did not assume the form
of open armed action, this is due to the resolute measures of the
people's government, to the vigilance and energy of our Party, and also
to small extent to the presence on our soil of units of the Soviet
liberation army, which by itself practically paralysed reaction.

2. Laying the Foundations of Socialism in Bulgaria

The victory of the people under the guidance of our Party over the
attempt of capitalist reaction to set back the clock of history created
the conditions for speeding up of the political and economical
development of our country, for proceeding to bring about basic
transformations and carry out constructive tasks of our people's regime.

Under the conditions created by the elections to the Grand National
Assembly and the formation of a government under the direct leadership
of our Party, there could be no further development of the productive
forces, of the national economy and of the well-being of the working
people without a radical encroachment on the economic basis of the
capitalist class. Bulgaria's experience confirmed the thesis of Lenin
and Stalin that under decaying capitalism, when the inherent insoluble
crisis of bourgeois democracy gives birth to fascism, no serious and
lasting democratic changes are possible, no progress is feasible,
without attacking the very foundations of capitalism, without taking
steps in the direction of socialism. In this our country's task was
greatly eased by the fraternal aid received from a strong socialist
state – the U.S.S.R.

The way was open for a full unfolding of the constructive tasks of the
people's government, for revolutionary changes in our national economy,
for the elimination of the economic basis of capitalist reaction, for
the transition from capitalism to socialism, which of course cannot be
realised without waging an uncompromising class struggle against the
capitalist elements.

In this situation the Party had to formulate new tasks in order to arm
its own cadres, the Fatherland Front and the working people with a
clear perspective. There was, however, a certain lag. After the chief
tasks of the preceding period were in the main solved, the Party by and
large continued to be guided by its old slogans. We permitted a certain
delay in the destruction of the reactionary opposition. We continued to
speak of the possibility of coordinating the interests of private
industrialists and merchants with the general interests of the state at
a time when the whole situation made it possible to take radical
measures for the elimination of the rule of big business in the
national economy, and when factors had emerged which enabled us to
advance resolutely towards laying the foundations of socialism in our
country.

We have never lost track of the general perspective of our development
towards socialism. We have always clearly realised that the destruction
of fascism and the realisation of the many reforms, which figure in the
Fatherland Front programme of July 17, 1942 was intimately tied up with
our ultimate goal – socialism and communism. We have said again and
again that, from the viewpoint of our Party as the vanguard of the
working class, the complete realisation of the Fatherland Front
programme meant the creation of the necessary conditions for our people
to advance to socialism. We always stressed that there was no
contradiction between our Fatherland Front policy and the struggle to
unite all democratic and progressive forces in the Fatherland Front for
the realisation of its programme, on the one hand, and the struggle for
socialism, on the other. But at that time the transition to socialism
still seemed to us a question for the comparatively distant future and
the international and domestic situation seemed to us not yet suitable
for the application of such radical measures.

Meanwhile, the Fatherland Front programme, such as it had been
proclaimed in 1942 and specified after September 9, 1944 in the
declaration of the first Fatherland Front government, had by the end of
1946 already been in the main fulfilled. What is more, with the
proclamation of the People's Republic and the elaboration of the
Two-Year-Plan, we had already gone beyond the first Fatherland Front
programme. The development of the revolutionary process started on
September 9 made it indispensable to take decisive measures for the
liquidation of large capitalist private property, for starting a
consistent policy of muzzling the kulak elements in the village, for
radically overhauling the entire state apparatus and for working out a
new Fatherland Front programme with clearly formulated perspectives of
the movement toward socialism, for a corresponding reconstruction of
the Fatherland Front, for a further consolidation of the dominant role
of the Party.
This lag in the rate of the economic and political development of our
country shows that our Party temporarily underestimated its own forces
and those of the working class and working people, and overestimated
the forces of reaction. As the 16th Plenum of the Central Committee
stated, our Party "lacked the necessary clarity regarding the
perspectives and the pace of our movement towards socialism." It was
not armed with a consistent Marxist-Leninist analysis of the September
9 turning-point and of ensuing possibilities and failed to grasp at the
proper time the different stages of our development. Fortunately,
however, the Party, although with a certain
lag and with an insufficient theoretical examination of the problems,
did managed to take action and ensure the solution of the new tasks
arising from the changed conditions.

This example confirms once again the old truth that it is easier to
learn by heart the principles of Marxism-Leninism than to apply them in
practice as a guide to action, correctly and in time, at every stage of
social development. For the mastery of this art, the Party leaders, at
the top and at the bottom, must work tirelessly and study diligently so
that the Party shall neither fall behind and be late in taking
necessary action nor rush ahead too far.

We shall never forget the invaluable and timely aid which we received
from the great Bolshevik Party and in particular from Stalin
personally, through advice and explanation on matters of our Party's
policy as a leading force of the people's democracy, which enabled us
quickly to correct our mistakes.

During the past year and a half, under the leadership of our Party, a
series of momentous and fundamental measures were carried out which
completely consolidated the people's democracy and prepared the ground
for laying the economic foundations of socialism in Bulgaria.

The new Republican Constitution was adopted, which legally consolidated
the historic gains of the September 9 uprising and of the people's
democratic form of government and opened up prospects for the country's
further development.

On the initiative and under the leadership of our Party, industry,
private banks, foreign trade, domestic wholesale trade, large urban
property and forests were socialised, while farm machinery and
implements were bought up from the farmers. The bulk of the means of
production and exchange have thus passed into public ownership.

The nationalisation of industry is the most important revolutionary
measure our economy. It consolidated our planned development on the
road toward socialism. In industry, credit and transport, the public
sector has come to occupy an almost monopolistic position. The same is
true in foreign trade and wholesale domestic trade. In our retail
domestic trade the public sector already outweighs the private sector.
In agriculture and handicraft the public sector has grown firm roots
which becoming ever stronger through the creation of more than 70
machine and tractor stations, of over 1,000 co-operative farms with
some 300,000 hectares of arable land, of state farms with almost
100,000 hectares of land, of new artisans' co-operatives, and through
the rapid rise of the co-operative movement in towns and villages.

Hand in hand with these radical changes and in conformity with our
people's constitution, our entire state apparatus was thoroughly
overhauled and, in spite of some defects, it continues to improve as an
apparatus of a people's democracy.

Our Party took the initiative and, as you know, in reorganising the
Fatherland Front under its own guidance into a unified political
organisation with its own rules and a revised programme formulating the
new tasks of transforming the country with a view to its forward march
toward socialism. Thus, as a result of the Party's steadfast work, the
coalition elements in the Fatherland Front were completely done away
with. It has now become an organisation of the militant alliance of the
working people of town and countryside under the generally accepted
leadership of the working class headed by our Party. All parties and
public organisations composing the Fatherland Front recognise today the
necessity of building socialism.

The Second Congress of the Fatherland Front marked a very important
stage in its development. The hostile, vacillating and unstable
elements which had infiltrated into the Fatherland Front with the aim
of disintegrating it and undermining it from within dropped out or were
expelled. The Fatherland Front only gained from that. In their place,
after the second Congress, new forces, came in from the ranks of the
working people and their mass organisations. The Fatherland Front as a
mass political organisation of the militant alliance of working people
of town and countryside, under the leadership of the proletarian class,
is now stronger and more united than ever. Favourable conditions exist
for a closer collaboration between the Fatherland Front parties.
Applying different methods of persuasion, agitation and propaganda,
depending on the peculiarities of those circles wherein each is mainly
working, the Fatherland Front parties are contributing to rallying as
many people as possible for the common goal – the construction of the
foundations of socialism by way of the people's democracy.

Today the Fatherland Front embodies the ever-increasing moral and
political unity of the working people of our country – a basic condition
for bringing to a successful end the fight against the capitalist
elements and the building of the foundations of socialism.

The transformation of the Fatherland Front into a unified political
organisation with a common programme, socialist in essence, with strict
discipline and the recognised leading role of the Communist Party, is
undoubtedly a great achievement. It is for this reason that we condemn
all underestimation of its significance and role. It was and continues
to be a vital necessity for our country. We cannot but call to account
those Communists whose scornful attitude toward the Fatherland Front
brings grist to the mill of our class enemies who are principally
interested in discrediting it.

It goes without saying that within the framework of the Fatherland
Front some of the component parties may prefer to merge or to
discontinue their independent organisational existence, whenever they
consider this timely and useful. But that is their own affair.

These profound transformations and the changed correlation of the class
and political forces in our country, together with the active support
of the Soviet Union, paved the way for the building of the foundations
of socialism in our country as an urgent, vital and practical task.
This is now the general policy of our Party. At the head of the working
class, closely allied to all the working people of town and
countryside, it will carry out this correct general policy firmly and
unflinchingly, with unshakable confidence in its victory,
notwithstanding all internal and especially external difficulties and
obstacles.

III. Character, Role and Perspectives of the People's Democracy

To be able to march confidently forward along the correct road
chosen by us, the road of socialism, full light must be shed on the
character, role and perspectives of the popular democratic system and
the People's Democracy. In this respect we must render more precise
certain of our concepts and correct others, recording the experience
accumulated so far as well as the most recent data on this new complex
problem affecting our country, as well as the other People's
Democracies.

What does this problem boil down two?

First,
popular democracy and the People's Democracy became possible, as you
know, as a result of the utter defeat of the German fascist forces, of
the historic victory of the Soviet Union in World War II and the
struggle of the peoples, led by the working class, for national freedom
and independence. These led to the falling off of a number of Eastern
and Southern European states from the system of imperialism.

The character of a people's democracy is determined by four major factors:

1) The people’s democracy represents the power of the working people
–of the overwhelming majority of the people, under the leadership of
the working class. That means, first, that the rule of the capitalists
an landlords is overthrown and the rule of the working people from the
towns and villages, under the leadership of the working class,
established, that the working class as the most progressive class in
contemporary society is playing the principal role in state and public
life. Second, that the state serves as an instrument in the fight of
the working people against the exploiters, against all efforts and
tendencies, aimed at re-establishing the capitalist order and the
bourgeois rule

2) The people's democracy is a state in the transitional period,
destined to ensure the development of the state on the path to
socialism. That means that although the rule of capitalists and
landlords is overthrown and their property handed over to the people,
the economic roots of capitalism are not yet extirpated; capitalist
vestiges still persist and develop, trying to restore their rule.
Therefore, the onward march toward socialism is possible only by waging
a relentless class struggle against the capitalist elements for their
liquidation.

Only by advancing directly on the road to the achievement of socialism,
can the people's democracy stabilise itself and fulfil its historic
mission. Should it cease to fight again the exploiting classes, and to
eliminate them, the latter would inevitably gain the upper hand, and
would bring about its downfall.

3) The people's democracy is built in collaboration and friendship with
the Soviet Union, with the land of socialism. Just as the liberation of
our country from the fetters of imperialism and the establishment of a
people's democracy were made possible by the aid and liberating role of
the U.S.S.R. in the fight against fascist Germany and its satellites,
so the further development of our people's democracy presupposes the
safeguarding and further promotion of close relations and sincere
collaboration, mutual aid and friendship between our state and the
Soviet state. Any tendency toward weakening this collaboration with the
U.S.S.R. is directed against the very existence of the people's
democracy in our country.

4) The people's democracy belongs to the democratic anti-imperialist camp.

A) Only by joining in the unified democratic anti-imperialist camp,
headed by the mighty Soviet state, can every people’s democracy ensure
its independence, sovereignty and safety against the aggression of the
imperialist forces.

B) Under the conditions of the military collapse of the fascist
aggressor states, of the abrupt sharpening of the general capitalist
crisis, of the immense strengthening of the power of the Soviet Union
and the existing close collaboration with the U.S.S.R. and the new
democracies, our country and the other new democracies were enabled to
realise the transition from capitalism to socialism without the
establishment of a Soviet order, through the regime of a people’s
democracy, on condition that the regime was consolidated and developed,
and by leaning on the U.S.S.R. and the other new democracies.

C) Embodying the rule of the working people under the leadership of the
working class, the people's democracy, in the existing historical
situation, as is already proved by experience, can and must
successfully perform the functions of dictatorship of the proletariat
for the liquidation of the capitalist elements and the organisation of
a socialist economy. It can crush the resistance of the overthrown
capitalists and landowners, their attempts to restore the rule of
capital, and organise the building of industry on the basis of public
ownership and planned economy.

The regime of the people's democracy will succeed in overcoming the
vacillations of the urban petty-bourgeoisie and middle class peasantry,
in neutralising the capitalist elements in the villages and in rallying
all the working people around the working class for the onward march
toward socialism.

The regime of the people's democracy will not change its character
during the carrying out of this policy which aims at eliminating the
capitalist elements from the national economy. The key positions of the
working class in all spheres of public life must continuously be
strengthened and all village elements rallied who might become allies
of the workers during the period of sharp struggles against the kulaks
and their hangers-on. The people's democratic regime must be
strengthened and improved in order to render powerless and liquidate
the class enemies.

D) The People's Democracies, including Bulgaria, are already marching
toward socialism, in ceaseless struggle against all domestic and
especially foreign enemies. They are now creating the conditions
necessary for the building of socialism, the economic and cultural
basis for a future socialist society.

This is the central task today facing the People's Democracies and,
consequently, the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party.

This task embraces the following important aspects:

a) Consolidation of the key positions held by the working class, headed
by the Communist Party, in all spheres of political, economic and
cultural life.

b) Strengthening of the alliance between the working class and the
working peasants under the leadership of the working class.

c) Speeding up the development of the public sector of the national economy and, in particular, of heavy industry.

d) Creating the conditions for the liquidating the capitalist elements
in village economy by a consistent policy aiming at their isolation and
subsequent annihilation.

e) All-around development of the producers’ co-operatives among the
peasants, giving state assistance to the poor and middle peasants
through machine and tractor-stations, agricultural machines, credit,
seed loans etc., intensifying their interest in the alliance with the
working class, persuading them by the example of the co-operative farms
of the advantages of that system, and re-educating them in a spirit of
intolerance toward capitalist elements.

So far as the nationalisation of the land is concerned, we consider
that in our situation and with the development of co-operative farms,
this question has no practical importance, i.e. we think that
nationalisation of the is not a necessary condition for the development
and mechanisation of our rural economy.

E) The people's democracy stands for internationalism. Nationalism is
incompatible with the people's democracy. Our Party sees in
internationalism, i.e. international collaboration under Comrade
Stalin, a guarantee of our country's independent existence, prosperity
and progress of our country towards socialism. We think that
nationalism, under no matter what guise is an enemy of communism. This
was clearly demonstrated by the anti­Communist actions of Tito's group
in Yugoslavia. Hence, the fight against nationalism is a primary duty
of the Communists.

Fighting all manifestations of nationalism, we must re-educate the
working people toilers in the spirit of proletarian internationalism
and devotion to their country, i.e. in a spirit of genuine patriotism.

Education in the spirit of proletarian internationalism and devotion to
one's country means, above all, to make people fully conscious of the
unique importance of a firm united front of the People's Democracies
and the U.S.S.R. in the struggle against the aggressive forces of
international reaction and imperialism. The entire future of our people
depends, on the one hand, on the power of the Soviet Union, and, on the
other, on their readiness and ability, in case of capitalist
aggression, honourably to fulfil their duty in the common fight.

At the same time, education in the spirit of proletarian
internationalism means to render people fully aware of the importance
of complete co­ordination of the activities of the Communist Parties,
and of the leading role of the Bolshevik Party. For there exists for
the Communist Parties one and only one theory as a guide to action – the
theory of Marxism-Leninism; one and only one aim in their policy; and
there exists the great Party of Lenin and Stalin, as the leading party
of the international labour movement.

To tirelessly educate the Party, the working class, the toiling
peasantry and intelligentsia, the whole people in that spirit is,
according to us, the prime condition for all our successes.

IV. The International Situation

Two basic facts characterise the present epoch: 1) the general crisis
and disintegration of the capitalist system, and 2) the continuous
growth and flourishing of socialism in the U.S.S.R.

The general crisis of capitalism is the logical consequence of its own
development. By developing the productive capacities of society to an
unprecedented extent, capitalism became entangled in contradictions
which it cannot solve. World War I ushered in the period of the general
crisis of capitalism. The October Revolution in Russia wrested from the
system of world capitalism one-sixth of the globe. Capitalism ceased to
be the sole and universal system of world economy; it lost its former
resilience.

World War II, which was prepared by all the forces of international
reaction and precipitated by the fascist aggressors, deepened and
sharpened the general crisis of capitalism. As during the first war,
the net result was a considerable weakening of capitalism.

The destruction of the main centres of fascism and world aggression
deprived international reaction of its bridge-heads – Germany, Italy
and Japan – in the struggle against the U.S.S.R. and socialism, against
the working class and the national liberation movement.

The international authority and power of the Soviet Union increased
tremendously. By its heroic struggle it not only defended its own
freedom and independence but also liberated the European peoples from
the foreign yoke. The U.S.S.R. played a decisive role in winning the
war against the aggressors and saved civilisation from the fascist
brigands. It showed to the whole world that the forces of socialism and
democracy are invincible. The U.S.S.R. became a decisive factor in
international politics. It is a pillar of peace and of the security of
the nations, of their free development towards progress and genuine
democracy. The U.S.S.R. is an insurmountable barrier to the realisation
of the dark schemes of international reaction to hurl the peoples into
a new holocaust.

Just as World War I ended with Russia's dropping out of the world
capitalist system, so World War II and the defeat of fascism led to the
breaking away from the imperialist system of a series of Eastern and
South-Eastern European states. Liberated by the Soviet Army, these
states were thereby enabled to determine their own destinies through
the free choice of their peoples, based on the selfless aid of the
Soviet Union.

The crisis of the colonial system, aggravated by World War II, led to a
powerful upsurge of the national liberation movement in the colonial
and dependent countries and threatened the rear of the imperialist
system. The colonial peoples no longer wish to live in the old way, and
they have risen in decisive struggle for the establishment of
independent states.

Throughout the whole capitalist world the war brought about an
unprecedented pauperisation of the masses, an increase of unemployment,
misery and hunger and a sharpening of class contradictions, since the
bourgeoisie is striving everywhere to shift the main burden of the war
and the post-war difficulties onto the back of the working people. At
the same time the war was followed by a great upsurge of the
international labour movement.

After the destruction of the fascist aggressors, the centre of world
reaction shifted to the United States. Hitler’s plans to enslave the
world, which suffered a fiasco in the last war were superseded by the
plans of the American imperialists for world domination. These
adventurist plans for the economic, political and ideological
enslavement of Europe and the whole world are directed against the
vital national interests of the overwhelming majority of nations and
peoples. They are prompted by the greedy imperialist appetites of a
financial oligarchy and by its fear of the growth of socialism and
people’s democracy.

Under the flag of the so-called “Western democracy” American
imperialism is trying to impose on the European nations its regime,
based on the almightiness of the dollar and the domination of a handful
of monopolists. Its aim is to turn the United Nations into a tool of
its own expansionist policy by violating the principle of sovereignty
and equality of the member-nations of this organisation. American
imperialism is striving to enslave the small and temporarily weakened
peoples and to build up an imperialist bloc against the U.S.S.R., the
People’s Democracies and the revolutionary movements of the workers and
the colonial people fighting for their freedom. It is pursuing a policy
of reckless increase of armaments. The Anglo-American imperialists are
brazenly interfering in the internal affairs of other states and are
everywhere supporting the reactionary and openly fascist elements which
have been rejected by the people.

But the Anglo-American bloc, established in the wake of World War II
with Britain playing second fiddle, can hardly be lasting and stable.
The contradictions between the two main states of present world
imperialism – U.S.A. and Britain – as well as between other capitalist
nations, are bound to grow more acute in the struggle for markets and
spheres of influence.

Today’s main difference between the democratic camp and the reactionary
camp in the world arena, between the warmongers and the partisans of a
lasting democratic peace, is the attitude toward the U.S.S.R.

The U.S.S.R. is resolutely resisting all the attacks of the
imperialists and all their attempts to scare people with atom bombs.
Pursuing a well-tried policy of peace and friendly collaboration among
peoples, the U.S.S.R. is backed by its growing economic and political
power, its invincible Soviet army, the unconditional support of working
class and working people throughout the whole world, who have an
abiding interest in the preservation of peace. The plans of the
aggressors and instigators of a new war are doomed to failure.

Exposing the instigators of a new world war, Comrade Stalin recently
stated what may be the outcome of their adventurous policy. Here is how
he put it:

“It can end only with the disgraceful collapse of the instigators of a
new war. Churchill, the chief instigator of a new war, has already
succeeded in depriving himself of the confidence of his nation and the
democratic forces of the world. The same fate awaits all other
instigators of war. The horrors of the recent war are to alive in the
minds of the people and the social forces in favour of peace are to
great for Churchill’s pupils in aggression to be able to overpower and
deflect them towards a new war.”

The time has passed when the peoples were blind and helpless tools in
the hands of the ruling capitalist cliques. The peace-loving peoples of
both hemispheres are increasingly mobilising themselves in defence of
peace, democracy and world culture; the anti-imperialist world front,
headed by the great Soviet Union, whose forces are growing
continuously, is taking ever clearer shape. Now when the imperialist
cliques are impudent enough to brandish the atom bomb, all peoples see
in the Soviet Union the main guardian of world peace and defender of
civilisation from capitalist barbarity. The peace-loving peoples
learned a good lesson from the duel between the forces of war and peace
which was held in the just concluded United Nations General Assembly.
Rejecting the Soviet proposals for banning of atomic weapons and for an
immediate reduction of armaments of the five Great Powers, the
Anglo-American imperialists were exposed before the eyes of the entire
world as the enemies of peace and international collaboration.

Not only the peoples of the Soviet Union and the people’s democracies
are ranging themselves in the peace front, but also the overwhelming
majority of the peoples in the capitalist countries and colonies. The
defeat of the reactionary and military Republican Party, in the recent
U.S. elections showed conclusively that the majority of the American
people do not want war and reject the reactionary programme of the big
capitalist trusts. Every sober observer may well ask himself what
British minister could beguile the British peoples into an anti-Soviet
war, when they remember that it was the Soviet Army which saved them
from the horrible Nazi menace. The struggle of the broad masses against
the incendiaries of a new war has assumed especially acute forms in
France and Italy. Increasingly losing hope that they can use the
peoples of the bourgeois-democrat nations as cannon fodder against the
Soviet Union, the war-minded imperialists are pinning their hopes on
their Western German zones of occupation and on fascist Spain, which
they wish to use as a base and weapon in their aggressive policy in
Europe.

After the war the anti-imperialist camp has extended far to the east
and on its side are now fighting for their independence the peoples of
Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma and other colonial states. The Korean people,
enjoying the selfless support of the U.S.S.R, carried off a brilliant
victory over reaction and the lackeys of imperialism by proclaiming
their independent people’s republic, which the Bulgarian government
recognised and greeted warmly.

Of exceptional importance for the correlation of forces between the two
world camps is the long, stubborn and heroic struggle which the Chinese
people are waging for their independence against the imperialists and
their corrupt reactionary agents in China. At this very moment the
million-strong national liberation army of China which under the firm
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party has won a series of
spectacular victories over the mercenaries of Chinese reaction, despite
the aid and arms given by the American imperialists, has already freed
the whole of Manchuria, practically the whole of North China, almost
all Inner Mongolia, and is now advancing headlong toward the capital of
Chang Kai Shek-Nanking. The forces of democracy amongst the Chinese
people, five hundred million strong, have already won the upper hand
over the forces of reaction, and their final victory is only a question
of time.

The anti-imperialist front is thus continuously growing and
consolidating. Today it already constitutes an unshakable force. The
masses of the people and the anti-imperialist forces in all lands, in
the first ranks of which are to be found the Communist parties, will
know how to paralyse the war-like machinations of aggressive
imperialism and will thus ensure lasting peace to the world.

The basic lines of our foreign policy, the foreign policy of the
Fatherland Front were already outlined in the 1942 programme;
safeguarding the national interests of the Bulgarian people in close
friendship with the U.S.S.R. and understanding with neighbouring states.

True to these principles, the Fatherland Front government from its very
inception passed over to the side of the Allies and led the Bulgarian
armies against the Nazi hordes; it withdrew its armies from the Greek
and Yugoslav regions which had been occupied by them and entered into
an understanding with the Soviet command for the speedier liberation of
the Balkans from Nazi occupation.

We know today and can assess the great political and moral importance
of the fact that Bulgaria participated, under Soviet command, in the
liberation war for the defeat of Nazi Germany.

We experienced once again the powerful and irreplaceable aid of the
U.S.S.R. when at the Paris Peace Conference the authoritative voice of
Comrade Molotov was heard to the effect that the Bulgarian people could
rest assured about their frontiers, for not one yard would be taken
away by anyone.

Ever since the Soviet government, intent on preventing Bulgaria
becoming involved in the war on the side of Germany, proposed to the
Filov government a pact of friendship and mutual aid between the
U.S.S.R. and Bulgaria, the Bulgarian people have felt the presence of
the powerful friendly hand of the U.S.S.R. They remember the Soviet
Government’s warning when the criminal monarcho-fascist clique
concluded an alliance with Germany and allowed the Nazi hordes to step
onto Bulgarian soil. They gratefully recall Stalin’s heartening words
on various times during the most crucial hours of the war, namely, to
persevere in their struggle against the monarcho-fascist dictatorship
which was bound to end in victory. On September 5, 1944, when the
provocations of the German agents had overtaxed the patience of the
Soviet government, the latter declared war on Bulgaria. Today we can
fully appreciate the decisive importance of this act for the destiny of
Bulgaria. In this “war” not one single Soviet or Bulgarian soldier was
killed, but the entry of the Soviet army helped overthrow the fascist
dictatorship and ensure the future of the Bulgarian people, their
freedom and national independence. We shall never forget that even
while the war was still on the Soviet Government started to provide
Bulgaria with basic necessities for our economy, helped to feed our
people during the droughts and continues to lend us valuable political,
economic, moral and technical assistance on an ever-increasing scale.

Our Party, intimately connected with the Russian revolutionary movement
from before the October revolution, has the historic merit of rendering
still deeper the gratitude of the Bulgarian people towards their
liberators and of transforming friendship with the U.S.S.R. into the
cornerstone of the foreign policy of our People’s Republic. Today our
friendship is also formally imbedded in the pact for friendship,
collaboration and mutual aid between the two nations.

Leaning securely on Soviet friendship, our free and independent
people’s republic was recognised by all nations, concluded the best
possible peace treaty under the existing circumstances, and established
normal diplomatic relations with practically all countries. Now it is
fighting for its right to admission in the United Nations and thus to
remove the last international consequences of Bulgaria’s former status
as a satellite of Nazi Germany.

The friendship between our republic and the other new democracies is
another very important aspect of our foreign policy. Its beginning
dates from the struggle of our peoples, aided by the U.S.S.R., for the
achievement and consolidation of their freedom and independence. We
highly value the assistance which the governments of fraternal Poland
and Czechoslovakia lent us during the Peace Conference in Paris and
also during the just concluded United Nations General Assembly, where
Bulgaria was subjected to unwarranted accusations and unjust attacks.
Our friendly relations with these two countries as well as with the
People’s Republic of Rumania, Hungary and Albania, which were sealed by
pacts of friendship, mutual aid and collaboration, are growing ever
firmer and open up broad perspectives for close co-operation between
our peoples, for ensuring their future along the path of democracy and
socialism.

Fraternal Yugoslavia, with whom the closest brotherly relations and a
common and age-old ideal united us – the establishment of a South Slav
Federation – is, unfortunately, ruled today by men – Tito and his group – who betrayed the great doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, the pre-condition
for mutual confidence between the Communist Parties and the basis for
their co­operation on the road to socialism. The nationalist policy of
the Tito group increasingly alienates Yugoslavia from the U.S.S.R. and
the new democracies, and subjects it more and more to the danger of
falling into the clutches of greedy imperialism. Our Party watches with
anxiety the degeneration of the present Yugoslav Communist Party
leaders into an ordinary bourgeois-chauvinist clique, hostile to
communism. But we do not doubt the loyalty of the Yugoslav Communist
Party to internationalism and Marxism-Leninism and its ability to bring
fraternal Yugoslavia back into the fold of the U.S.S.R. and the
people’s democracies.

The friendship of our Party and the Greek Communist Party weathered the
storm of World War II. During the hardest period of German-Bulgarian
occupation, our Party was on the side of the Greek national liberation
movement and helped it as best we could. During the voluntary
evacuation of Western Thrace, the Bulgarian soldiers left behind all
reserves of food for the hungry local population. Our Party and our
people are deeply shocked by the sufferings to which the heroic Greek
people, who were the first in the Balkans to fight the Italo-German
aggressors, have been subjected by a monarcho-reactionary clique
supported by military aid from foreign powers. We follow with profound
sympathies the epic struggle of the Greek people against the foreign
occupationists and their local quislings. The Greek Communist Party,
the democratic army and the entire Greek people may consider our party
and the Bulgarian people their true friends. We staunchly believe in
the final victory of people’s democracy in Greece, which alone will
ensure freedom and independence to the Greek people and will create, on
the Greek side, the necessary conditions for sincere friendship and
collaboration with us and Greece’s other northern neighbours.

The imperialists and war incendiaries resort to any means in their
attempt to obstruct the development of our republic. They made numerous
efforts to aid and abet the defeated forces of reaction in Bulgaria.
Day in and day out the “Voice of America” radio-station slanders and
insults our republic and its government leaders and openly calls for
crimes against the people’s authorities.

The leaders of Lulchev’s bankrupt Social-Democratic Party recently
exposed before the court and before the whole world the backstage
schemes of certain foreign diplomats. But even after this fiasco of the
plotters, our republic continues to be the object of vicious slanders
and attacks. Just when our people are mobilising all their material
resources and their labour for the fulfilment of the forthcoming
Five-Year-Plan, when they are focusing their entire attention on the
tasks of our economic and cultural construction, the war-incendiaries,
as though at a given signal, are impudently accusing our peaceful
little republic of “militarism” and “aggressive designs” with respect
to our neighbours.

The very opposite is the truth. And this indubitable truth every honest
and unbiased observer sees and knows. Our republic needs lasting peace,
friendship and collaboration with other peoples, in order to catch up
with the other more advanced nations and to become an economically
advanced, civilised, democratic and socialist state. That is the goal
of its foreign policy. But our Party knows that this can be achieved
only if our nation is free, independent and enjoys equal rights. That
is why, at the head of the Fatherland Front, it is fighting against
foreign interference, watching over the freedom and independence of the
People’s Republic Bulgaria and working for ever closer collaboration
with our allies, with the peace and freedom-loving peoples.

Working diligently for that aim our people are ready to rise as one man
in order to nip in the bud all provocations and attempts on the
territorial integrity and the frontiers of the Bulgarian People’s
Republic.

V. The Southern Slav Federation and the Macedonian Question

The treachery of Tito's group towards the U.S.S.R. and the united
democratic anti-imperialist camp, its anti-Marxist and nationalist
alignment, condemned by the Communist Information Bureau, by all
Communist Parties and all genuine democratic organisations, found
expression in its attitude toward the federation of the Southern Slavs
and the Macedonian question.

With the overthrow of the Fascist dictatorship in Bulgaria on September
9, 1944, and the establishment in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia of a people's
democratic regime under the leaders of the Communist Parties, very
favourable conditions were created for a rational and democratic
settlement of the Macedonian question.

Under the newly created domestic and international conditions, the
vital interests of the Bulgarian and Yugoslav peoples demanded that
both nations seek the closest rapprochement which would quickly lead to
their economic and political unification – to the establishment of a
federation of Southern Slavs. Such a federation, firmly based on
friendship with the U.S.S.R. and fraternal collaboration with the other
new democracies, could have successfully defended the freedom and
independence of its peoples and ensured their proper development toward
socialism. Within the framework of such a federation there would have
been successfully solved, all the old unsolved problems left over by
the bourgeois-monarchic regimes concerning the unification of the
Macedonians from the Pirin district with the People's Republic of
Macedonia, as well as the return to Bulgaria of the purely Bulgarian
Western Border Region which the Yugoslavia of King Alexander had
grabbed after World War I.

Our Party firmly chose that course, relying on the word of the Yugoslav
Communists to whom we were tied by common work and association covering
a period of many years. And that is the present stand of our Party. But
the nationalist leaders of Yugoslavia left this only correct path.
After the two governments had agreed on a series of measures relating
to the forthcoming establishment of the federation, the Central
Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party informed our Party in March
1948 that it had changed its mind, that we should not be in too much of
a hurry about the federation, and refused to discuss the matter any
further. At the same time, the Yugoslav leaders set as the central task
the transformation of the Pirin district into an autonomous region with
a view to Its inclusion in Yugoslavia, independently of the existing
understanding on the creation of a federation.

Evidently this about turn of Tito and his group was intimately tied up
with their betrayal of Marxism-Leninism. This group is skidding down
the slippery road of nationalism and today takes the same stand as the
Greater Serbia chauvinists used to do when they were striving for
hegemony in the Balkans and for annexing Macedonia to Serbia and
Yugoslavia.

The disclosures made at the Albanian Communist Congress about the
aggressive intentions of the Tito group towards Albania are another
proof of its double-faced policy, its crass nationalism and departure
from the united socialist front of the Soviet Union and the people's
democracies.

There were in the past two alternatives for the solution of the
Macedonian question, which for decades on end was at the centre of
Balkan rivalries and wars.

1) A democratic revolution for Macedonia’s liberation from the Turkish
yoke. This road was chosen by the internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organisation (IMRO) – Gotse Delchev, Sandansky and others – as well as
by the Macedonian revolutionary Social-Democrat Union – Hadji Dirnov,
Nicola Larez and others. These Macedonian organisations enjoyed the
full support of our Party, many of whose members were active fighters
in the Macedonian revolutionary movement.

2) The bourgeois nationalist road, i.e. the liberation of Macedonia
from the Turkish yoke through a war, and its annexation by one or
several Balkan states. Our Party has always firmly opposed
military-bourgeois nationalism and has fought steadfastly against the
plans of the Balkan monarchies and the bourgeois-capitalist cliques to
enslave and carve up Macedonia.

The second alternative prevailed, however, leading to the two Balkan
wars (1912-13). Macedonia was freed from the Turkish yoke, but carved
up between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria.

In the face of the growing danger of an imperialist aggression on the
Balkans, the Balkan socialist parties raised the slogan of a Balkan
democratic federation. United in a mighty federation, the Balkan
peoples could have more easily defended their freedom and independence
against any aggressive moves by the imperialist forces. At the same
time, the federation would have helped to solve all the outstanding
national issues in the Balkans, including that of Macedonia. Within a
Balkan democratic federation, Macedonia, split into three parts, could
have united as a state with equal rights.

Our Party correctly linked the solution of the Macedonian question with
the creation of a Balkan democratic federation. That is why it has
waged a long, consistent and uncompromising fight against Greater
Bulgarian chauvinism. It stuck to that position during the Balkan wars
and World War I.

What was the essence of the Greater Bulgarian chauvinism of the Bulgarian monarchist and capitalist bourgeoisie?

It consisted, first, of an attempt to gain hegemony in the Balkans and,
second, of an attempt to forcefully incorporate Macedonia into the
Bulgarian state. This policy, which during World War II was carried out
under the overlordship of Nazi Germany, was in fact a treacherous
policy, concealing the attempts of Nazi Germany to turn so-called
"Greater Bulgaria" into a German colony.

After the October Socialist Revolution and the accession of the Balkan
Socialist parties to the Communist International, the Balkan Socialist
Federation became a Balkan Communist Federation, in which our Party
played a very active role. The Balkan Communist Federation saw the
solution of all Balkan problems, including that of Macedonia, in the
creation of a Balkan democratic federation, capable of defending the
freedom and independence of all Balkan peoples.

Our Party thus took up a correct and time-honoured stand on the Balkan
question in general and also offered a truly democratic solution of the
Macedonian question. The slogan for a Balkan federative republic was in
complete conformity with the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the national
problem.

"The conscious workers in the Balkan countries," wrote Lenin in 1912,
"were the first to raise the slogan for a consistently democratic
solution of the national problem in the Balkans. It was the slogan of a
federative Balkan Republic. As a result of the weakness of the
democratic classes in the present Balkan states (where the proletariat
is numerically small and the peasantry backward, illiterate and
disunited) the economically and politically necessary union became an
alliance of Balkan monarchs."

Prior to World War II there had grown up a powerful progressive
Macedonian movement in Bulgaria, which advocated the self-determination
of the Macedonian people, as a free nation. It was fully supported by
our Party, which during the war, worked in full agreement with the
Macedonian Communists. Bulgarian partisans fought shoulder to shoulder
with Macedonian partisans against the German-Bulgarian occupation
forces. Our Party warmly welcomed the establishment of a Macedonian
People's Republic, within the Federative People's Republic of
Yugoslavia.

Everyone knows that our Party made great sacrifices in the struggle for
the defence of the Macedonian people's right to self-determination, and
against the aggressive policy of the Bulgarian bourgeoisie.

After the Bled Agreement, and in order to help forward the process of
the drawing together and future unification of the Macedonian regions
in both countries, our Party sanctioned the introduction of the
official Macedonian language as a compulsory subject in all schools in
the Pirin district, and admitted many Macedonian teachers from Skopie
as instructors, as well as Macedonian librarians to circulate
Macedonian books. This was a proof that our Party felt the greatest
sympathy for the Macedonian people's unification.

But the Belgrade and Skopie leaders double-crossed us despite our
Party's good intentions. Most of the teachers and librarians sent from
Skopie, evidently on instructions from their Yugoslav leaders, became
agents of Greater Yugoslav, anti-Bulgarian chauvinist propaganda; and
later, after the treachery of Tito's group towards the U.S.S.R. and the
united anti-imperialist camp, they came out as open anti-Soviet agents.

What Kulishevsky's agents did in the Pirin district was only a
reflection of what happened inside the People's Republic of Macedonia.
Under the pretext of a struggle against Greater Bulgarian chauvinism
and with the aid of the state apparatus and all other public
organisations – political and cultural – a systematic campaign was waged
against everything Bulgarian, against the Bulgarian people, their
culture, their people's democracy, their Fatherland Front and
especially against our Party. No Bulgarian books or newspapers, not
even Rabotnichesko Delo, were allowed to enter the People's Republic of
Macedonia. All Bulgarian inscriptions on old school buildings and other
monuments were carefully erased. Family names, as for instance
Kulishev, Uzunov, Tsvetkov and others, became, as we know, Kulishevsky,
Uzunovsky, Tsvetkovsky, so that they should have nothing in common with
Bulgarian names.

Public officials in the Macedonian People's Republic had the effrontery
to make declarations directed against the Bulgarian people and against
Bulgaria. In his well-known speech, delivered on March 23, 1948 before
the 2nd Congress of the Macedonian People's Front, Kulishevsky
slanderously accused our country and our people's authority of
oppressing the Macedonian population in the Pirin district.

Kulishevsky's provocative speech was eagerly reproduced by the
newspapers, news agencies and radio of the Anglo-American imperialists
in order to launch a scurrilous campaign against the People's Republic
of Bulgaria and the unification of the Macedonian people.

The main point in the attacks against the people's democracies made
last July at he 5th Congress of the Yugoslav Communist Party in
Belgrade was directed against our nation. In their speeches Tito,
Djilas, Tempo, Kulishevsky, and Vlahov spat their chauvinist venom at
Bulgaria and at our Party, whose fault, it seems, is its refusal to let
them grab the Pirin district and its condemnation of their treason.
General Tempo went even so far in his chauvinist self-deceit as to jeer
at the anti-fascist struggle of the Bulgarian people and their partisan
movement, although everyone knows that our partisans fought together
with Yugoslav partisans and that our army played an active part under
Marshal Tolbukhin in the war for the final liberation of Yugoslavia.

Towards the end of September 1948 the Prime Minister of the Serbian
People's Republic, Peter Stambolich dared publicly to slander our
country in the Belgrade Skupstina, alleging that responsible Bulgarian
politicians were spreading propaganda against Yugoslavia's territorial
integrity and sovereignty.

It is clear that such slanders can have only one aim: to antagonise the
Yugoslav peoples against the Bulgarian people, to create a gulf between
the two fraternal peoples and to furnish imperialist propaganda with a
weapon with which to heap new lies and slanders on Bulgaria.

Late in November 1948 a trial was held in Skopie of Bulgarian fascists,
police agents and other war criminals, who had committed atrocities
during the occupation of Macedonia. This trial, however, was turned
into a vicious chauvinist campaign against the Bulgarian people and
against our country. The prosecutor, the judges and the accused fascist
criminals themselves, according to a pre-arranged understanding, with
touching unanimity cast aspersions on the Bulgarian people.

The nationalist and chauvinist policy of the Titos and Kulishevskys,
which is the other side of the coin of their anti-Soviet alignment, is
not only directed against Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people but also
against the Macedonian people. This policy has borrowed the methods of
the Bulgarian and Serbian nationalists and is sowing hatred among the
Macedonian people, inciting one part against the other, resorting to
terror and persecution against those who disapprove of the official
course of the present Yugoslav leaders. In this way the realisation of
the age-old dream of the Macedonian people – their national unification – is being artificially delayed.

The people of the Pirin district, however, refuse to fall for this
vicious anti-Bulgarian and disruptive propaganda. They are opposed to
the inclusion of their land in Yugoslavia before the realisation of a
federation between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, because from time
immemorial they have considered themselves economically, politically
and culturally tied to the Bulgarian people and do not wish to cut
loose. Besides, they are still alive among these people the traditions
of the Macedonian revolutionary movement and, in particular, of its
Seres wing, headed by Sandansky, which has always advocated federation
as the only correct solution of the Macedonian question.

We know very well that the nationalist and chauvinist policy of
Belgrade and Skopie leaders of the Tito and Kulishevsky type do not
have the approval of the majority of the Macedonian people who are
convinced that their national unification will be built on an
understanding between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, in cooperation with
these peoples and with the powerful assistance of the U.S.S.R.

Our Party has always said and continues to say that Macedonia should
belong to the Macedonians. True to the traditions of the Macedonian
revolutionaries, together with all honest Macedonian patriots, we are
deeply convinced that the Macedonian people will translate their
national unity into reality and will ensure their future as a free
nation with equal rights only within the framework of a federation of
Southern Slavs.

In the past, the unification of the Southern Slavs has always met with
the stubborn resistance of German imperialism. Today the new pretenders
for world domination – the American and British imperialists – oppose the
unification and merging of the Southern Slavs. They have found worthy
allies in the present Yugoslav leaders.

Assured of the support of the U.S.S.R., of the new democracies and of
the world forces of democracy, the Southern Slavs will be able to smash
the opposition of the imperialists and realise their vitally necessary
unity. The main obstacle to the federation of the Southern Slavs is
today the nationalist leadership in Belgrade and Skopie, the Titos,
Djilases, Kulishevskys, Vlahovs, traitors to Marxism-Leninism. But
history is marching on and will sweep aside everything which stands in
the way of progress. The cause of the unification of the Southern
Slavs, including the Macedonian people, will triumph.

VI. Economic and Cultural Prospects and Tasks

In the economic field the people's government was faced with the
immediate task of repairing the damage caused by the war and German
plunder and of clearing the way for the our country's further economic
development towards socialism.

In industry the task of reconstruction was successfully solved in the
course of the Two-Year-Plan. In 1948 industrial output exceeded pre-war
by 75 percent. Its development was given a strong impetus by the
nationalisation, which enabled it to proceed towards socialist
reconstruction, towards the merging of industrial enterprises and the
centralisation of production by combining it according to branches and
concentrating it in the most productive units.

In agriculture, the process of rehabilitation is not yet completed,
mainly due to the three post-war droughts. Certain branches of
livestock breeding and crop-raising are lagging behind. But here, too,
together with efforts to reach and surpass the pre-war level in all
branches, socialist reconstruction has being started through the
creation of large-scale cooperative and state farms. The co-operative
farms, more than 1,000 in number and covering some 300,000 hectares of
arable land, have become a firmly established new form of rural
economy, which alone is capable, with the aid of the machine-tractor stations, of improving the well-being of the peasants, of
mechanising and modernising our agriculture, and of directing it
towards socialism.

The middle peasants have recently begun to adopt a favourable attitude
towards the cooperative farms, whose number is increasing continuously.
Strictly observing the principle of voluntary membership, the present
task is to consolidate, strengthen and multiply the already existing
farms and turn them into models for the extension of cooperative
farming.

The national income for 1948 already exceeds pre-war by 10%, thanks
mainly to the successful nationalisation of industry. Moreover, the
national income is distributed in a much fairer way today, as a result
of the expropriation from the bourgeoisie of industrial enterprises,
banks and wholesale trade and of the liquidation of the large estates
together with the large urban real estate lots, which did away with the
big incomes of the exploiters.

However, our task is not merely to rebuild that which already existed
in our national economy. We must rapidly proceed with the further
development of our country's productive forces for the early
elimination its economic backwardness and its transformation into
highly developed industrial-agricultural country. The task is now, I
repeat, through industrialisation and electrification and by
mechanising rural economy, to achieve in 15 or 20 years that which
other countries under different conditions achieved in the course of a
whole century. For this purpose it is necessary to create a powerful
electrical base by exploiting the country's water and fuel resources,
rapidly to develop mining, to build up our own iron and steel industry
and a sufficiently developed machine-building industry and other heavy
industries, as well as to develop, modernise and amalgamate our light
industry. It is also necessary to strengthen our rural economy by
putting large agricultural machines, primarily tractors, at its
disposal and to increase the yield of the soil through agro-technical
improvements, irrigation, electrification, and a wide use of artificial
fertilisers.

Our industrial policy should be: systematic reduction in costs,
cheapening of output and lowering of the prices of industrial goods. In
Stalin's words, that is the broad road along which industry must move
if it is to go ahead and grow stronger, to lead agriculture in its wake
and to speed up the laying of the foundations of our socialist economy.

Nationalised industry, developing in accordance with the laws of
expanded socialist reproduction, i.e. yearly increasing its output and
establishing new enterprises will present ever-larger demands for food
and agricultural raw materials. The growing needs of industry, of the
urban population and of the army cannot be satisfied by private and
small rural economy, which has a low productivity. This raises the
problem of a socialist reconstruction of rural economy simultaneously
with the socialist reconstruction and development of industry. You
cannot for long base the people's democratic rule and socialist
construction on two different principles – large-scale and amalgamated
socialist industry and scattered, backward small commodity production.
Rural economy must be transferred gradually, systematically and
steadfastly to a new technical basis, that of large-scale production
through the amalgamation of private farms into big, mechanised
cooperative farms. That is why the Five-Year-Plan provides for a 60%
collectivisation in the countryside within the next five years. Bearing
in mind the recent progress of the cooperative farms, this task is
quite feasible.

In building socialism our people must rely mainly on their own
strength, using our own resources with the greatest economy of means
and materials. A regime of strict economy must be the permanent and
daily aim of every economic and state leader, of every worker and
peasant in our People's Republic and, before all, of every Communist.
Our people are happy that they can also count on the disinterested
brotherly aid of the great country of socialism – the Soviet Union – and
on planned cooperation with the other people's democracies, which will
save us much labour and effort and will hasten its development.

Like good farmers, we do not eat up everything that we produce but save
part of the national revenue for the further development of our
national economy – for the construction of new factories and plants, new
machine and tractor stations for a new upsurge of the productive forces
in industry and agriculture.

We shall thus be able to satisfy the growing needs of both town and
countryside and ensure the gradual and continuous improvement of the
standard of living, as well as guaranteeing our country's rapid
economic development, which is the guarantee of the future well being
of our working people and of our children.

We are glad to say that in spite of difficulties which are not yet
quite overcome, the food supply of our people, with increased rations,
is completely ensured until next harvest. The bulk of the working
peasants have carried out their obligations to the state and he people
honestly and readily. Only an insignificant minority, mainly from among
the kulaks and the former reactionary opposition, some of whom
infiltrated into the Fatherland Front, tried to sabotage and to
speculate with the people's bread. This resistance, however, will be
broken.

The new system of compulsory delivery of agricultural produce to the
state and the free sale of surpluses, which the government adopted and
which will be perfected on the basis of our experience, distributes the
obligations more equitably among the peasant producers in accordance
with the size of their property and their possibilities and stimulates
them to cultivate their soil more diligently and get a higher yield. By
selling part of their produce to the state at fixed prices the peasants
receive, again at fixed prices, an ever-increasing quantity of
indispensable industrial goods they need.

The new state price policy aims at establishing a relatively stable and
just ratio between the prices of different commodities. Thus every
producer will know what he can get in exchange for his produce today,
tomorrow and the next day. We must avoid a repetition of the post-World
War I situation, when an agricultural boom was followed by a
catastrophic drop in prices, entailing the ruin of many farmers. The
systematic increase of the productivity of labour in industry and
agriculture will gradually lower the prices of industrial and
agricultural commodities, and result in a lower cost of living and a
stabilisation of the Lev.

The supply of basic necessities made a new step forward during the last
months. But we are not yet able to completely satisfy all needs. Two or
three consecutive good harvests should enable us fully to satisfy the
increased needs and the growing consuming power of the working people
and abolish rationing. We must, therefore, exert all efforts for the
fulfilment of the sowing plan, for the maximum increase of the yield of
the soil. And until it becomes possible to abolish rationing
distribution will have to be carried out not according to the principle
of perfect equality, but according to the quantity and importance of
the work done. All parasites, loafers and exploiters must be deprived
of the possibility to getting goods at ceiling prices. The regular and
adequate supply of key workers on whom the fulfilment and
over­fulfilment of the economic plans depend, must be ensured. "To each
according to his work" – that is both just and economically sound.
Everyone is able to do more work and better work and hence to earn more.

The successful solution of the basic economic task – the fulfilment of
the Five-Year-Plan – requires the efforts and enthusiasm of all working
people. The trade unions have a very important part to play in this
respect. Under their leadership shock-work and socialist emulation must
become a general method of work, embracing workers and peasants, men
and women, young and old. In Bulgaria work must increasingly become a
matter of honour, dignity and heroism. The country must get to know its
heroes of labour, its inventors, rationalisers, innovators, the
talented and loyal masters of intellectual and physical work who
increase the economic and cultural strength of our people and multiply
the national wealth. It should honour them as its best and most worthy
sons and daughters. In new Bulgaria everyone's place will be determined
not by his name or origin, nor by his talk or opinion of himself, but
exclusively by his work, by what he contributes to the economic,
cultural and political progress of his people.

There can be no other criterion in this respect.

The broad sweep of constructive activity in all branches of our
national economy requires the creation of an army of construction
workers, engineers and technicians, as well as their proper supply with
the latest tools. The entire nation follows with admiration the labour
exploits of our brigaders and working youth. Many of our major projects
will carry the proud and honourable name "youth construction."
Continuing to make the fullest use of the work of brigaders and
trudovaks as well as of local brigades, we must at the same time
multiply the army of permanent construction workers, masters and
enthusiasts of their trade, armed with the achievements of modern
construction technique. The profession of construction workers must
become one of the most honoured professions in Bulgaria.

We shall get new labour cadres for our growing economy from amongst the
peasants who can find no work in agriculture as well as from amongst
housewives whose working capacity is wasted by drudgery at home. We
cannot become a prosperous nation and improve our living standards much
as long as a great part of national labour is wasted unproductively and
used inadequately for a good part of the year. Many urban and rural
workers hitherto employed only part-time will find work in the new
constructions and new industrial enterprises. The creation of more
nursery schools and crèches, of public canteens and laundries, will
relieve house-hold work and enable many housewives to seek a more
rational and socially useful way of applying their labour and
abilities. Through free courses and schools we have already started to
train our labour reserves, i.e. qualified industrial and construction
workers from among the workers' and peasant youth. This should be
continued with even greater energy.

Our country has already set out on the road of socialist development.
The major factors for our socialist construction are already in
existence: a people's democratic government, the alliance of the
proletariat and the peasants under the former's guidance, large-scale
industrial production in the hands of a people's democracy, a rapid
development of the productive forces through new economic construction,
cooperatives, and especially cooperative farms and artisan's
cooperatives; and last but not least, the active fraternal support of
the U.S.S.R. and close economic collaboration with the people's
democracies, which guarantees and considerably expedites our socialist
development.

During the first Five-Year Plan our task will be to lay the foundations
of socialism both in industry and in agriculture. The aim of the plan
is precisely the solution of this task. Upon these foundations the next
two or three five-year plans will see the building of socialism and
the creation of socialist society.

Our main tasks in building the economic and cultural foundations of socialism can be formulated as follows:

1. Exertion of all forces and resources for the successful fulfilment of the Five-Year Plan.

2. Complete socialisation of the means of production and exchange, i.e.
their transformation into the property of all the working people;
abolition of all unearned income on the basis of the principle "He who
does not work, shall not eat."

3. Unification of the nation's entire economic activity in one general
economic plan; a strict regime of economy in materials, means and other
resources.

4. Tapping of our national wealth, detection of oil, creation of our own ferrous and non-ferrous metal industry.

5. Increased production of electrical energy, so as to satisfy the
needs of industry and agriculture by the building of power stations and
increasing the output of coal from existing coalfields and exploitation
of new ones; transformation of low-grade coal into electric energy.

6. Running our light industry at full capacity by introducing two and
three shifts, rationalisation and reconstruction and liquidating the
disproportion between interrelated branches, so as completely to
satisfy the needs of the population.

7. Altering the ratio between light and heavy industry in favour of the
latter by developing electrical energy, coal and ore output, machine
building, chemical, rubber and other industries, in order to increase
the well-being of the people and to reduce the dependence of our
national economy on imports from abroad.

8. Maximum production of raw materials for our industry by increasing
the sown area of industrial crops, improving livestock breeding and
speeding up the exploitation of mineral wealth.

9. Radical reconstruction of rural economy on the basis of cooperative
and state farms with high yields and high commodity production in order
to ensure the growing needs of the population, industry and export.

10. Solution of our bread problem once and for all on the above basis;
ensuring of high harvests through modern machine cultivation of the
soil, use of artificial fertilisers, creation of forest belts and
irrigation.

11. Development of highly productive livestock and sheep breeding and poultry; increase of the area under fodder crops.

12. Planned afforestation for the improvement of the country's climate
and for satisfying the growing needs of timber for construction;
efficient exploitation of forests by making full use of their yearly
increase; creation of high altitude agriculture (flax, potatoes etc.)
and livestock breeding.

13. Development of both sea and Danube fisheries, creation of artificial lakes and dissemination of fish in our river.

14. Introduction of comfortable and rapid means of communication by the
extension and electrification of our railway system, creation of a
dense network of well-kept roads, development of automobile and air
transport.

15. Raising the material and cultural level of the workers, the toiling
peasants and intelligentsia; improvement of the supply of basic
necessities.

16. Extension and consolidation of state and cooperative trade,
creation of an apparatus for the purchase of agricultural surpluses and
for a fuller development of trade between town and village.

17. Creation of a new socialist labour discipline through the
re-education of the masses, the development of shock-work and socialist
emulation by enlisting more and more.

The fulfilment of the economic tasks is intimately connected with
raising the cultural and ideological level of the Bulgarian people.
Special attention should be to the education of working people of town
and countryside and of the intelligentsia in a socialist spirit.

Let us never forget that the struggle on the cultural and ideological
is of first-rate importance for making away with the vile legacy of
capitalism, for overcoming bureaucracy, waste and parasitism, for
increasing the productivity of labour, for fulfilling the
Five-Year-Plan and, in general, for the progress of our nation toward
socialism.

As a result of this development, our country will in the course of
several five-year plans be transformed from a backward agrarian country
into a highly developed industrial-agrarian country. This means that
alongside of maximum increase of agricultural yields we shall speed up
industrial development, which in turn will immeasurably increase the
wealth and prosperity of our nation and ensure its economic
independence from imperialism and its defensive capacity.

This development will be along socialist lines. The last vestiges in
our economy of the exploiting classes in the towns – the urban
bourgeoisie – will be liquidated. Craftsmen will unite in artisan's
cooperatives. The village bourgeoisie – the kulaks – will be increasingly
rendered harmless and squeezed out of their economic positions as
exploiters of the working peasants, while the development of the
cooperative farms will create the conditions for their complete
liquidation. Antagonistic classes will disappear, and society will be
composed of workers, working peasants and a working intelligentsia,
whose interests will not clash and who with united efforts will bring
about our country's advance to socialism and then to communism.

"The indisputable successes of socialism in the U.S.S.R. on the
construction front," wrote Comrade Stalin, "have demonstrated that the
proletariat can successfully govern the country without the bourgeoisie
and against the bourgeoisie, that it can successfully build industry
without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie, that it can
successfully direct the whole of the national economy without the
bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie, that it can successfully build
socialism in spite of capitalist encirclement."

Our experience, although still inadequate, clearly shows that the
Bulgarian working class has not only the desire but the necessary
determination and ability to follow the example of their Soviet
brothers.

The socialist development of our country is the prerequisite for the
solution of our population problem. During the next Five-Year-Plan
Bulgaria's population must through increase of births and decrease in
child mortality reach the figure of ten millions. Thus our people will
conclusively prove themselves a healthy and virile nation, building up
their own culture, national in form and socialist in content, and
making their contribution to the treasury of human culture.

VII. The Party as a Driving Force and Leader

On the eve of September 9, 1944 the Party numbered some 25,000 members,
steeled in the long fight against fascism, having undergone the trials
of underground activity in conditions of ferocious fascist
dictatorship. After September 9, when the Party became a governing
party and started to work for the reconstruction of our country on a
new basis, thousands of workers, working peasants and intelligentsia
gravitated toward it. It became a magnetic centre attracting the most
active, militant and progressive elements in our country, who were
eager to contribute their forces to ensuring Bulgaria's development as
a people's democracy toward socialism. Only six months after September
9, at the time of the seventh enlarged plenary session of the C.C. the
Party numbered 254,000.

This Party growth continued during the ensuing years. At the end of
1946 its membership exceeded 490,000. It had deliberately opened wide
its doors to the working people and had admitted new members on a big
scale. We did not want to exclude the great number of working people
who had awakened for the first time to political life and were
gravitating toward the Party as a result of the liberation war and the
downfall of the fascist dictatorship. We decided to accept into the
Party many workers who, despite their political immaturity, could play
role in the vanguard, intending to train and educate them politically
within the Party and with the aid of our pre-September 9 cadres. We
therefore established a network of schools and Party courses, organised
many educational classes, circles, lectures and discussion groups.

The sixteenth plenary session of the Central Committee approved that
policy. But at the same time it noted that the ideological political
education of the new members was far from adequate. This did not prove
so easy and required a longer time. Hence, the ideological and
political level of the Party rank and file still falls far short of
what is required to ensure the dominant role of the Party, especially
in the provinces. There are quite a few members and even entire primary
party organisations, mostly in the villages, which are not yet able to
fulfil their role as a vanguard, are lagging behind events, become
exponents of retrograde sentiments and not only fail to fight against
difficulties but sometimes go so far as to undermine discipline in
offices, factories and fields. This was clearly demonstrated during the
compulsory delivery of cereals to the state. In some villages there
were "Party members" and even Patty leaderships who did not head the
campaign for ensuring the people's food and even sabotaged the delivery
of cereals in practice. The same holds true of certain village
Communists who do not help and sometimes hinder the creation of
cooperative farms.

All this shows that along with the honest and devoted members, who
constitute the great majority of the Party rank and file, there are
some accidental, demoralised and careerist elements who have
infiltrated into the Party for purely personal and selfish ends. These
people create an unhealthy atmosphere, weaken discipline and spread the
virus of disintegration. This leads to "sick" organisations, torn by
internal squabbles between different groups jockeying for positions.

Such things cannot be tolerated in a Communist Party – the vanguard of
the toilers. Drastic and quick measures must be taken to purge the
Party of all alien, accidental, demoralised and careerist elements. In
May 1948 the Politburo of the Central Committee decided to suspend the
enrolment of new party members until the end of the current year. The
sixteenth plenary session of the Central Committee confirmed this
decision in July and decided to propose to the present congress the
introduction of candidate membership and measures for the regulation of
the Party's social composition. It also decreed the further purging of
the Party of accidental elements.

As a result, the Party comes to the present Fifth Congress with 8,053
primary Party organisations and 464,000 members. If we add to these the
party members in the Army and Labour Corps and the former members of
the Social-Democratic Party who entered our Party after the fusion of
the two Parties, the total amounts to 496,000 – i.e. almost half a
million.

No village, no factory or major construction, no city district, no ward
is without its primary Communist Party organisation: 500,000 Party
members in a Bulgaria of seven million – that is indeed a mighty
political army, an invincible force which can move mountains, as the
saying goes, on condition that every Party member becomes a conscious
and educated Communist-Bolshevik, ready to die for the Party, his
country and the great cause of Communism, capable of being a real
leader and organiser of the broad non-Party masses.

Under the generally acknowledged political leadership of the Party,
there are such mass organisations as the Fatherland Front, numbering
approximately 1,000,000 members, the trade unions with 680,000 members,
the Bulgarian Women's Union – 539,000, the Union of People's Youth –
586,000, the Farmers Union-1,000,000 members, the cooperatives-over
2,000,000 members, etc. This explains why our country's entire
political, economic and cultural life proceeds under the exclusive
political leadership of our Party.

As to social composition, the 464,000 party members, about whom
detailed information is available, are distributed as follows:

Workers

123,000

or

27%

Peasants

207,000

or

45%

Employees

76,000

or

16%

Craftsmen

30,000

or

6%

Free professions, students, house-wives, pensioners and others

28,000

or

6%

Among the employees there are many former sent in by the Party to
consolidate the state apparatus or appointed as heads of nationalised
enterprises. One should also mention the Party's great influence on the
intelligentsia, which helps to draw them into the active construction
of socialism. While the membership figure of 500,000 is quite enough
for the Party to play its leading role, the social composition leaves
still much to be desired. The percentage of workers in the Party should
be increased to at least 30 or 35% mainly from among the industrial and
construction workers. At present the workers who are party members can
be subdivided as follows:

Industrial workers

40%

Artisans

16%

Agricultural workers

12%

General workers (incl. construction workers)

32%

The peasant composition of the Party can be considered as
satisfactory: 11% of the peasants who are party members have joined
cooperative farms, 57% are poor peasants and 32% middle peasants.

According to age groups, party members can be divided as follows:

Up to 20

less than 10%

20-30

25%

30-40

39%

40-50

25%

50-60

8%

Above 60

2%

Work among the youth must be intensified so as to enlist the best and most active of them for the Party.

A classification by education of party members is as follows:

Illiterate

7%

Public School education

45%

Semi High-School

30%

High School

6%

Junior College

1%

College

3%

University

2%

The relatively large number (31,000) of illiterate Party members who
stem mainly from the national minorities (Turks, Gypsies and others) in
the Rhodopa and Ludogorie districts and Dobrudja sets the Party the
task of taking immediate measures for the liquidation of illiteracy
among its members. We must get rid of the mistaken notion that we have
no illiterates, when in the Party, the vanguard of our people, there
are 31,000 illiterate members. The considerable number of partially
literate (mainly in the villages) should induce us to publish a
political primer and a series of popular pamphlets, printed in large
type and written in simple language. The collective reading of
newspapers followed by discussion, as well as the diffusion of radio in
villages also assume considerable importance.

The percentage of
women in the Party is also unsatisfactory – 13%. Women workers
constitute only 18% of all women party members as against 44% peasant
women, 16% clerks, 19% housewives and 3% students. The poor
participation of women, and especially of women workers in the Party is
inexcusable in view of the great political and social activity
displayed by women and the great part played by women workers in the
promotion of shock work and socialist emulation. Evidently our Party
organisations underestimate work among women and especially among women
workers, and are unable to help them to join the Party and stay in it,
taking into account that as well as their regular occupation in
factories, offices and mass organisations they have household duties to
perform. Too frequent and too long conferences; overburdening of women
activists with work; a petty bourgeois attitude towards women, which
continues to exist even among many Party members; a certain inferiority
complex among women, a vestige of their age-old subjection; shyness and
uncertainty as to their ability to cope with the requirements of Party
membership – these are the main obstacles to a larger women membership
in the Party. The unsatisfactory participation of women in the Party is
that weak link whose strengthening will both increase the number of
women Party members and improve the social composition of the Party.

The quantitative and qualitative composition of its leading cadres is
an index of the strength of the Party and the scope of its work.
Whereas even during its peak periods before 1923, the Party never had
more than 40,000 members, now there are more than 45,000 members of
Party committees alone. Of these, 3,558 are former partisans and
political prisoners; 676 have been Party members for over 20 years,
2,536 from 10 to 20 years, 3,415 from 5 to 10 years, 22,000 from 3 to 5
years and 17,000 less than three years (the latter are mainly in the
leaderships of the primary Party organisations). Hence the complaints,
still often heard, that the old Party members are being neglected
during the election of committees are not quite warranted.

The network of primary party organisations embraces practically all
localities of the country and is connected with all working categories
of our people. We have 4,900 village territorial primary organisations,
878 town territorial organisations, 854 factory organisations, 811
organisations in institutions and ministries, 209 in cooperative farms,
16 in machine-tractor stations, 13 in state farms, 89 in artisan
cooperatives, 120 in transport, 49 in mining, 23 on construction jobs
and 91 in schools, or a total of 8,053 primary Party organisations.
This represents a tremendous achievement for our Party. The primary
Party organisations, however, have still to be consolidated and become
true leaders and organisers of the masses. The great task now is not so
much to increase the number of the Party organisations as to improve
the quality of their work. Increased influence of the Party depends not
only on the number of its members, but above all on their quality,
their Marxist-Leninist education, their loyalty to the cause of the
Party and of socialism, their ability to keep in touch with the masses,
to mobilise them and lead them towards the fulfilment of the national
tasks set by the Party and government.

From this point of view the situation within the Party is far from
satisfactory. As was stressed by the sixteenth plenary session of the
C.C., there are quite a few members in the Party who in reality should
at best be candidates for membership. In the life of the Party
organisations, internal party democracy is not up to standard.
Criticism and self-criticism, irrespective of persons, has not yet
become the basic motive of party life from top to bottom. We have not
yet completely got rid of methods of ordering people about in party
organisations and do not always know how to develop and how to heed the
collective consciousness and the experience of the Party. The Party
leaderships have not yet organised their work on the basis of
collective leadership.

What is more, we often forget the shrewd observation of Vladimir Ilych
Lenin that two things are of decisive importance for the stability of
the Party: selection of people (cadres) and check-up of the fulfilment
of decisions. We also do not pay enough attention in our practice to
what Comrade Stalin has often underlined, that "cadres decide
everything."

Today there are neither left-wing nor right-wing organised groups or
factions. The Party does not and will not tolerate such factions.
However, there still exist quite a few right-wing and left-wing
tendencies on the part of individual party members. Besides the above
mentioned cases, there are also cases when party members give up in the
face of hardships, are ready to capitulate before the resistance of the
class enemy. Others refuse to submit to any party or state discipline,
or fail to recognise the stages of development, fail to understand the
people's democracy and the Fatherland Front as a special path of the
onward march toward socialism; taking refuge behind loud-mouthed
"revolutionary" demagogic phrases, in practice they hinder the
development toward socialism.

The correctness of the Party's policy for the liquidation of the
capitalist system and the construction of socialism in our country,
through uncompromising class struggle against the capitalist elements
and through adopting the planning principle in our economy, is not
disputed by anyone in our Party. It is generally recognised and firmly
carried out in practice.

Unfortunately, however, there still does not exist complete unity of
thought and action in our Party from top to bottom. In order to achieve
this we shall still have to work hard. Cases are not rare in which
Central Committee decisions are accepted only formally, while in
practice they are carried out in a different and distorted way. There
still exist "little dictators" in our Party who, banking on their past
merits, real or imaginary, exploit their positions and refuse to abide
by any laws or decrees and act in an arbitrary way. There are still
chatterboxes and inflated egos, people with big and perverse ambitions,
who pretend that there is nothing they cannot do, and yet lack the
ability or intelligence to work and run things systematically and
efficiently, and to finish what they have begun. Such people do not
like to learn and are capable of wrecking every useful job.

The Party must fight such unhealthy phenomena, by word and by deed,
through the elucidation and correction of those who have gone wrong,
and even through the removal of the incorrigibles. The Party will be
purged of the pseudo-communists who have joined misunderstanding or for
selfish careerist ends. We shall work with all our might for the
creation of that Bolshevik unity in thought and action from top to
bottom which is the basic guarantee for the success of our great cause.

In order continuously and unswervingly to strengthen our Party, we must do the following:

1) Purge our Party organisations of inimical, careerist and accidental elements who have entered its ranks.

2) Make a strict selection among the new members and candidates wishing
to enter the Party and regulate its social composition by strict
adherence to the rules and by systematically increasing its proletarian
composition.

3) Develop internal party democracy by overcoming the vestiges of
leadership. Discuss and decide party problems collectively in the party
leaderships and organisations. Entrust every party member with a
concrete task and check-up on its fulfilment. Encourage sound criticism
and self-criticism in the Party, raise the general activity of its
members, tighten Party discipline and unity in its organisations.

4) Organise systematic Marxist-Leninist collective and individual
education of every party member and candidate on a much boarder basis.
A member who does not want to learn, to educate himself and to make
progress is not and cannot be a real member of our Party.

At the end of 1947 certain changes were made in the organisational
structure of our Party. On account of the reorganisation of our state
apparatus and the abolition of the administrative counties, the party
“county committees” had to be dissolved. This was unavoidable, since
our Party, as the leading force in the administration of the country
cannot have a structure different from that of the state. When the
county party leaderships were disbanded, their cadres got jobs in the
state apparatus, in the centre or in the localities: or else were
switched to the district and municipal organisations of the Party and
the Fatherland Front for the purpose of consolidating those
organisations.

With the abolition of the county committees the Central Committee was
able to contact and supervise the 95 district and 7 municipal party
committees more directly. It got a better idea of the true state of
affairs in the district committees and could exercise a more direct
control over their activities and give them the necessary assistance.
On the other hand, the district Party leaderships showed greater
initiative in their activities and around them there grew up cadres,
capable of heading Party organisations.

But along with the positive features of this re-organisation there were
also serious drawbacks. Some anaemic district committees were deprived
of the daily aid which they had formerly been getting from the county
committees. The C.C. was too far removed from them, while its apparatus
was temporarily weakened rather than strengthened. In spite of the
measures taken in this respect after the 16th plenary session the C.C.
apparatus has not yet been sufficiently consolidated.

What should be done in this respect?

1. It is necessary to intensify the measures for the consolidation of
the instructors' apparatus at the C.C. to improve and strengthen the
aid it gives to the district committees: the members of the C.C. and
other leading comrades should personally visit the district and
municipal Party organisations more often.

2. The district committees should be strengthened by promoting new
comrades from among the party cadres of the primary organisations, in
particular from those in industrial enterprises. District secretaries
should be retained longer in their positions, and their authority as
influential activists, enjoying local popularity, should be
consolidated.

During the past four years, ever since our Party became a ruling party,
several changes in personnel had to be made in order to ensure party
leadership and improve the work in a series of important cog of our
state apparatus. Thus it was necessary to select and send into the
People's Army 3,533 party members, into the Ministry of Internal
Affairs 2,000, into the 'Ministry of Industry 1,101, and into the other
ministries 5,576. In other words, over 12,000 party members were
selected and sent to work in a leading capacity to work in the state
apparatus. This was no easy job, and its execution entailed the
surmounting of many and various difficulties.

One might have expected that the entry of so many Communists into the
state and economic apparatus would substantially have helped overcome
bureaucracy. Unfortunately, in many cases the very opposite was the
case. It is remarkable with what ease some of our comrades, instead of
trying to uproot bureaucracy, turn themselves into bureaucrats. The
fight against bureaucracy is no easy task. It will require great
efforts and perseverance. In order completely to overcome bureaucracy,
the people must take an ever greater part in the administration of the
state and in public control. In this respect, the committees attached
to the various departments of the People's Councils have an important
role to play. All this is connected with raising the general cultural
and political level of the people. The struggle against bureaucratic
distortions and lethargy must never be taken off the agenda. Every
manifestation of bureaucracy must be ruthlessly exposed and censored.

Nor must we forget that the brilliant victories of our Party prompt
certain comrades and Party hacks to smugness and conceit. In order that
the Party may develop normally and fulfil its future complex tasks, it
must fight with all its power against that great peril, of which our
teachers, Lenin and Stalin have time and again warned the Communist
Parties.

And thus, during the four years of people's government, since September
9, 1944, our Party has grown and developed into a first rate political
party, the decisive, driving and leading force in the construction of a
new life in our country along the path of people's democracy and
socialism. Through bold Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism, the
Party combats its own weaknesses, which are weaknesses mainly of its
quick growth, and is consolidating itself more and more as a true
Marxist-Leninist party.

Our Party has before it the example of the great Bolshevik Party, whose
Central Committee and great leader, Comrade Stalin, have lent us more
than once invaluable aid by their advice and guidance. Our Party, which
takes an active part in the Information Bureau of the Communist and
Workers' Parties, is proud to belong to the great family of world
communism, headed by the Bolshevik Party and the leader of progressive
mankind – Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

The entire experience of the international communist movement confirms
the truth that one cannot be a true Marxist without being a true
Leninist, and that one cannot be a true Leninist without being a
Stalinist.

I conclude the political report of the Central Committee with the party
slogan: Under the victorious banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin,
forward to socialism and communism!

Reply to the Discussion

Concluding Speech,Delivered on December 25, 1948, before the Fifth
Congress of the Party after the Conclusion of the Discussions on the
Report

Comrades and Delegates,

After all that has been said so far, I feel that I can limit myself to a short concluding speech.

The discussions have shown the complete unanimity of Congress with the
political report of the Central Committee as well as with the other
reports on the agenda of the congress, with the appraisals made and the
inferences drawn, with the general party line on the building of the
economic and cultural foundations of socialism in Bulgaria and with the
concrete task set in all spheres of our political and cultural life.
The Congress was completely unanimity on the basic problems of party
policy. This is undoubtedly one of the most important guarantees for
our future success.

The working out of a correct party line and its unanimous approval by
the party members is the most important fact and factor. We should not
forget, however, Stalin's invaluable advice that good resolutions and
declarations on the general line of the Party are only a beginning that
merely indicates a desire to win, but are not tantamount to victory.

"After the correct line has been laid down," says Stalin, "after a
correct solution of the problem has been found, success depends on how
the work is organised; on the organisation of the struggle for the
application of the party line; on the proper selection of personnel; on
the way a check is kept on the fulfilment of the decisions of the
leading bodies. Otherwise the correct line of the Party and the correct
solutions are in danger of being seriously prejudiced. Furthermore,
after the correct political line has been laid down, organisational
work decides everything, including the fate of the political line, its
success or failure."

For the success of the general party line adopted unanimously by our
Fifth Congress it is necessary: a) to wage a systematic and steadfast
struggle against all difficulties, of which there are quite a few on
our road, to surmount them by mobilising the forces of the entire
Party, of the working class, of all the working people, of the
Fatherland Front; b) to organise an ever more active participation of
new forces in socialist construction; c) to make a constant and strict
selection of the cadres, raising the capable ones to positions of
leadership in the struggle against hardships, and removing
incompetents, those who do not wish or are not capable of growing and
developing.

Now that our Party stands at the helm of the state with its members
occupying responsible key positions and its authority having soared to
unprecedented heights, now that our working people express their
readiness to follow our Party and its general line – as was splendidly
shown in yesterday's demonstration of the working people of Sofia, the
role of our organisations and their leaderships becomes crucial. Our
party leaderships now carry the main responsibility for all
shortcomings, omissions and mistakes. On our Party and on the work of
its cadres will hinge the successful execution of a great task, the
fulfilment of the Five-Year Plan, as well as the other important
decisions of the Congress.

In my report I showed what a mighty force our Party is, what wide
social support it enjoys, how firm and close are its ties with existing
mass organisations, how deep are its roots in the working class, in the
working people. And if in spite of these colossal possibilities which
all make for success, we still have many shortcomings, weaknesses and
omissions, the fault for this lies within ourselves, especially in our
insufficiently concrete practical leadership, in the serious flaws
which creep into our organisational work.

We must do away as soon as possible with the lag in our organisational
work so far as the requirements of the political line and the tasks of
the Party are concerned. We must raise the level of organisational
leadership in all spheres of our activity, especially in our national
economy, to that of political leadership, so that our organisational
work may ensure the implementation of the political line and the
decisions of the Party.

Of decisive importance in this respect, as has already been stressed at
congress, are the selection of cadres, check-up on the fulfilment of
the decisions and the popularisation of criticism and self-criticism
within the Party, of internal party democracy.

Our congress demonstrates the undeniable growth of our party cadres,
especially of out middle cadres who in the main decide the success of
party policy in all spheres of our construction. We must assist in
every way the further growth of our party cadres and unhesitatingly
remove from their positions incorrigible bureaucrats and red tape
addicts, swelled headed little dictators, chatterboxes, inefficient
people. We must boldly promote to positions of leadership new cadres,
people who have proved themselves capable organisers and efficient
workers.

Very important for the correct selection of cadres, for their growth
and training, for the timely correction of mistakes and shortcomings in
their work, is the check-up on the execution of decisions and on the
tasks entrusted to every single party member. It is no exaggeration to
say that most of the flaws and omissions in our work are due to the
absence of a constant and correct system of check-up.

Only such a check-up can ensure a successful struggle against
bureaucracy, against those incapable of guiding and organising the
implementation of the party decisions, against all distortions of the
Party line. This check-up, however, must be systematic and constant and
be carried out by the leaders of the organisations themselves.

As we noted at the sixteenth plenum of the Central Committee, criticism
and self-criticism within our Party have not yet become a genuine
motive force of its development. In this respect congress has
undoubtedly made a big step forward, especially in the discussions of
the Five-Year Plan and of organisational problems.

The popularisation of constructive criticism and self-criticism in our
Party and the laying bare of inadequacies in our work must be our
constant and paramount task after the congress as well, in all sections
of the Party from top to bottom.

We must never forget that the height of wisdom for a real Communist is
frankly to admit his mistakes, to boldly expose their causes and always
to be ready to radically to correct them.

In the Party and in all spheres of our life we must get rid completely
of the harmful habit of not concretely pointing out mistakes lest we
risk friendships, upset someone or create personal troubles. We must
have no nepotism when deciding on party or state matters. The interests
of the party of the working class, of the people, must stand above all
such petty-bourgeois considerations and prejudices.

Arising from the discussion and certain questions addressed to me in
writing, I wish to make two more remarks on matters of principle.

1. From what I said in my report, namely, that under our present
conditions, with the development of the agricultural cooperatives, we
do not consider nationalisation as an indispensable condition for the
development of the village economy, it should under no circumstances be
concluded that it is possible in general to build socialism in the
village without the nationalisation of the land. We consider, however,
that by gradually winning over the poor and middle peasants into the
cooperative farms, by developing the machine and tractor-stations, by
prohibiting the letting out of farms, by limiting and then prohibiting
the buying and selling of land, by reducing and then abolishing rent
through decision of the cooperative farmers themselves, when conditions
permit, the practical problem of the nationalisation of land will be
solved by making over of all the land to the working peasants for their
perpetual use. Thus the working peasant, who is today the slave of his
small plot, will be enabled to make the widest use of the fruits of the
land which will be considerably increased through modernised and
mechanised cultivation in the large scale cooperative farms.

2. The second remark refers to the definition of the people's democracy
given in my report. Some comrades who touched on this problem were
inclined to put the emphasis mainly on that which distinguishes
people's democracy from the Soviet regime, something which may lead to
incorrect and harmful conclusions.

According to the Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet regime and people's
democracy are two forms of one and the same rule – the rule of the
working class in alliance with and at the head of the working people
from towns and villages. They are two forms of the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The particular form of transition from capitalism to
socialism in Bulgaria does not and cannot alter the basic laws on the
transition period from capitalism to socialism which is valid for all
countries. The transition to socialism cannot be carried out without
the dictatorship of the proletariat against the capitalist elements and
for the organisation of the socialist economy.

But whereas bourgeois democracy is the dictatorship of capital, of an
exploiting big business minority over the great majority of working
people, the people's democracy fulfils the functions of the
dictatorship of the proletariat in the interests of the overwhelming
majority of working people and realises the widest and most complete
democracy – socialist democracy.

From the fact that the people's democracy and the Soviet regime
coincide in the most important and decisive respect; i.e. that they
both represent the rule of the working class in alliance and at the
head of the working people, there follow some highly essential
conclusions concerning the necessity of making the most thorough study
and widest application of the great experience of socialist
construction in the U.S.S.R. And this experience, adapted to our
conditions, is the only and best model for the construction of
socialism in Bulgaria as well as in the other people's democracies.

The fears expressed by our comrade Todor Pavlov before this Congress
that the definition of our people's democracy as a form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat might encourage attempts to violate law
and order, made a considerable stir. Such fears are completely
unwarranted. People's democracy, fulfilling the functions of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, by its very essence and character
cannot tolerate any arbitrariness and lawlessness. This rule is strong
enough to be respected by everyone, irrespective of his position.

We harbour no illusions – and in our Party there are no serious party
members who can have such an illusion – that the road along which our
Party is travelling will be smooth. We know that this road is hard and
stony but it is the only safe road for the working class, the people
and our country.

We realise that we still have many difficulties to overcome. But we
also know – and our people know it well – that our Party has demonstrated
that it is not afraid of difficulties in fulfilling its historic
mission. Our Party has also shown that it knows how to overcome all
difficulties, no matter how great they may be and from whatever
quarters they may stem, whether from our internal or external enemies.

Now, armed with the historic decisions of our Fifth Congress, learning
constantly and tirelessly from the great Bolshevik Party and our common
teacher and guide, Comrade Stalin, there can be no doubt that our Party – headed by a Central Committee to be elected by the Congress and which
will be Leninist-Stalinist in spirit, firmness, iron discipline,
diligence, fearlessness before hardships and dangers, – will bring to a
victorious conclusion in spite of everything the task we have begun of
building a socialist society in our country.

Footnotes

1. Bouzhloudja, a peak in the central part of the Balkan Mountains, on
which a constituent congress was called and the foundations of the
Bulgarian Communist Party were laid in August 1891.

2. The explosion in the Sofia Cathedral on April 16, 1925, the work of
militants belonging to the ultra-left wing of the anti-fascist
movement, aimed at killing of the representatives of the
monarcho-fascist regime. The Bulgarian Communist Party, through its
Central Committee, promptly condemned this act as reckless and ruinous,
helping the im­plementation of the monstrous and bloody massacre of
anti-fascist fighters, staged by the fascists. Tsankov's government
took advantage of the attempt and started a reign of terror. Thousands
of anti-fascists were murdered or burnt alive, other thousands thrown
into prison and still others were forced to emigrate. The anti-fascist
organisations were disbanded.

3. Peter Iskrov, Georgi Lambrev and Ilia Vassilev (Boiko), the leaders
of the left sectarian faction of the Bulgarian Communist Party, which
in 1929 seized the Party leadership, declared that the old Party cadres
were unable to act as genuine revolutionaries, put forward a theory
about the vanguard role of youth and raised incorrect slogans such as
‘a general all-out offensive,’ ‘capture of streets,’ ‘seizure of land,’
etc.

The activity of this faction held back the Party rearmament with
Leninist theory and practice, led to the Party’s estrangement from the
masses and led it to opportunist inaction during the military fascist
coup d’etat of May 19, 1934.

The sound Party forces, headed by Georgi Dimitrov and Vassil Kolarov,
carried on an unflinching struggle against left sectarianism, which was
crowned with success in 1935 when a new Leninist course was adopted in
the policy and practice of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

4. On May 19, 1934, the Officers' League and the ZVENO Political Circle
carried out a military fascist coup d'etat, overthrew the government of
the popular bloc which had come to power as a result of elections held
in 1921 and established a fascist dictatorship.

After the coup d'etat the last survivals of parliamentary and bourgeois
democracy were done away with. The National Assembly was disbanded, the
political parties and trade unions were dissolved, their publications
were prohibited, political meetings were forbidden and the press was
subjected to strict censorship.

5. Konstantin Mouraviev, one of the right-wing leaders of the Agrarian
Union. As Minister of War in Alexander Stamboliiski’s government he
allowed the fascist officers to organise a conspiracy and to carry out
a military fascist coup d’etat on June 9, 1923. In 1931-34 Mouraviev
was first Minister of Education and then of Agriculture. On September
2, 1944, he headed the government of the so-called ‘legal opposition’,
appointed by the monarcho-fascist agents with a view to diverting the
people from the insurrection, which had come to a head, and gaining
time so that the nazi forces might be able to prepare new defence
positions in the Balkans against the Soviet Union. On September 9,
I944, the peoples uprising overthrew Mouraviev’s government. The
People’s Court sentenced him to life imprisonment.

6. The Law on Land Ownership, adopted by the National Assembly on March
12, 1946, determined the maximum size of a farm-stead: 20 hectares
(excl. South Dobroudja – 30 ha) for peasants, and 3 to 5 ha for
non-peasants. The land of war criminals and people's enemies was
confiscated. Most of it, 211,000 ha, was distributed among 128,000
landless and poor peasants (an average of one hectare per family).

The law encouraged the peasants to join agricultural producers cooperatives.

7. Decree No. 4 was issued on November 23, 1944, by a group of
reactionaries, members of the Fatherland Front Government, headed by
Damyan Velchev and Nikola Petkov, behind the back of the Communist
Ministers. Its aim was to save the fascist officers who had committed
crimes against the people from a just punishment, by offering them the
opportunity to leave for the front and join the fighting forces so that
they might thus ‘a tone for their guilt.’ In case they were wounded or
awarded a medal these persons were exempted from responsibility. This
question had to be resolved, according to the decree, by the Minister
of War, i.e. Damyan Velthev.

The Bulgarian Communist Party firmly objected to this decree. On
December 4, 1944, its Politbureau stated in a declaration that decree
No. 4 ran counter to the Fatherland Front programme and demanded its
immediate repeal. In answer to its appeal, nation-wide meetings and
demonstrations were held at which the working people supported the
Party’s demand. Under the pressure of the masses, the reactionary
ministers were forced to capitulate and on December 7, 1944 decree No.4
was annulled.

8. Damyan Velchev (1883-1955), a reactionary politician and general,
one of the leaders of the right wing in the ZVENO political circle, an
active participant in the June 9, 1923 fascist coup d'etat in 1934. In
1944-46 he was member of the first Fatherland Front Government Minister
of War, but as a result of his anti-popular activities he was compelled
to vacate his ministerial post. Later Velchev was appointed Minister
Plenipotentiary to Bern. Subsequently he refused to return to Bulgaria.

9. Gemeto (Dr. Georgi Mihailov Dimitrov), a reactionary politician and
one of the leaders of the right wing of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union in
the pre-war period. During the years of the Second World War he
emigrated. After Bulgaria’s liberation Gemeto returned to Bulgaria and,
having succeeded in seizing the post of Secretary General of the
Agrarian Union, developed an activity which was hostile to the People’s
Government. He raised the demagogical slogan ‘peace, bread and freedom’, which at that time meant
to put an end to the war against nazi Germany and to give free rein to
the fascists and reactionaries. Through his agents Gemeto began to
propagate the slogan of a homogenous agrarian government. Under the
pressure of the broad masses of Agrarian Union members who wanted to
strengthen their ties with the Fatherland Front and purge the Agrarian
Union of all reactionary elements, in January 1945 Gemeto was forced to
abandon the post of Secretary General and in May 1945 at the Agrarian
Union Conference he was expelled from its ranks. However, he continued
his subversive activity against the People’s Government, as a result of
which he was placed under home arrest. He succeeded in escapingand hid
in the home of Mr. Barnes, the American political representative to
Bulgaria. In September 1945, Gemeto left Bulgaria. Outside the country
he headed the hostile activity of the reactionary emigrants against the
People’s Republic of Bulgaria.

10. Nikola Petkov, a reactionary politician. In 1943-45, as a
representative of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union, he was a member of the
National Council of the Fatherland Front. After Bulgaria's liberation
he was a Minister without portfolio in the first Fatherland Front
Government (1944-45), but soon began an insidious struggle against the
democratic undertakings of the People's Government. In 1945-47 he
headed the right wing of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union, which together
with the right wing of the Social Democratic Party had split off from
the Fatherland Front to form the anti-popular opposition. For his
activity against the People's Government and for having plotted its
violent overthrown Petkov was sentenced to death in 1947."

11. Grigor Cheshmedjiev (1879-1945), reactionary
militant of the
Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party. In 1944-45, as a Minister of Social
Welfare, he was a member of the first Fatherland Front Government. In
1945, he headed a group of right wing social-democrats who left the
Fatherland Front and the Social-Democratic Party and formed a
social-democratic party of their own, which engaged in hostile
activities
against the people’s democratic rule.

12. Yuroukovtsi, supporters of Vassil Yuroukov, leader of the right wing in the ZVENO political circle.

Footnotes and text taken from: http://www.st-cyprus.co.uk/misc/index.html